Ken Davenport

[(Insert Clever Name)]

Ummm, don’t thread police me because I can’t find anything in the search bar, but why does everyone hate him? Like I’m not saying he’s great, I just want to know the stuff he did?

[BalconyClub]

He may have put ketchup on a hot dog.

[Ado Annie D'Ysquith]

Check for the "Spring Awakening Kickstarter" thread, and then go to Google and find out what happened to the website that became "Did He Like It."

I've heard other things, of course, but I can't cite them as anything other than hearsay.

[ArtMan]

I had an issue once when Godspell was at Circle In The Square.  They had a promotion that was advertised for an event with show gifts/prizes, but the event staff (not box office or venue staff) were making statements that were quite different from the written material.  I sent him an email and to my surprise he contacted me by phone.  (Or I hope it was him).  I was impressed that he took the time to contact me.  He actually admitted I was correct in what I had read and his staff were wrong.  However, he did nothing to resolve the issue,  I didn't ask, but I thought he could have offered something (t shirt or cast recording) for the miscommunication.   I still was impressed, if it was him, that he took the time to contact me.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

That would hardly be the only problem with Godspell, but I exhausted myself so often and so loudly on that subject I had to start a new account to get away from it. The short version is that no matter how much he tries to sell himself as a 21st century innovator, he's only one serious misstep away from becoming the next Adela Holzer.

[adamgreer]

Don’t forget his “tweet seats” at Godspell, where he encouraged audience members to tweet about the show...during the performance. I think the pushback on that was so intense that it never happened, but it was definitely announced.

[bwayphreak234]

The only thing he has produced that has been of any remote quality was Spring Awakening. I have found all of his other productions to be gimmick filled and self indulgent. I am not a fan of him or the work he produces.

[HogansHero]

#7 falls in the trap of trying to logic from personal taste. 

There are a lot of specific things but the biggie is that he has never helmed a successful production. In show business, that's all that really needs to be said. 

[BroadwayRox3588]

One time, he punched me in the face. It was awesome.

[UncleCharlie]

He's so mean, he once shot a man just for snoring.

[wonkit]

I just have to ask - the curiosity is killing me - why do you care?

[ethan231h]

forgive me if this was asked before but whats the story with DidHeLikeIt? 

[Rainah]

I don't find him as objectionable as many. Most of the criticism seems to come down to the fact that he's gimmicky and/or tryhard in how he's promoting his shows. And, yep. He is. He does a lot of tricks/gimmicks to generate press and he's not nearly as good as other producers in ensuring his hand is hidden. (Hamilton is marketed just as ruthlessly/manipulatively, they're just a lot better at looking classy and hiding it)

Which... doesn't seem like a great reason to condemn someone honestly. We can roll our eyes a bit, say "of course Davenport would do something like this", but it doesn't make him a bad guy.

He also makes a lot of producing info available in a way other big-name producers don't, and funds a lot of shows that have a lot of value artistically, even if they're not commercial successes. For every Getting The Band Back Together there's Deaf West Spring Awakening.

So, in short, he may not be a great producer - a decent amount of his decisions backfire (And some more backfire longterm in a reputation for not being classy), he's got a terrible track record for commercial success, and he's gimmicky. However, looking at the projects he funds, I have to say I'm glad he's out there funding them. In a time when we are increasingly ruled by the latest disney musical or adaption of a 90s movie, he's giving us a breath of fresh air. 

[LizzieCurry]

RIP StageGrade

[Kad]

The Spring Awakening Kickstarter is really the worst offense. The original thread is here: Official Kickstarter to get Spring Awakening to perform on the Tonys

The tl;dr version is that just before the Tonys, a Kickstarter was created- ostensibly by Deaf West- in order to fund their Tony performance, with a cutoff date the night before the awards, with the implication that without the funding, the performance could not happen. Davenport took to his blog to champion it, and say that although he believed in the show, it was not financially responsible to fund its performance. This was all pretty much immediately called out as shady- there's a lot of prep and planning required for a Tony performance. Moreover, the donations were being called tax deductible, despite the production being a commercial venture. Davenport went so far as to delete blog posts he had written that criticized crowdsourcing once they were brought up here. The final nail in the coffin was that the Spring Awakening performance was formally announced by the Tonys well before the Kickstarter was funded- and then, they received numerous very large donations that closed the gap. It was all a publicity stunt to essentially pay back Davenport + et al for the performance, essentially, using Deaf West as a credible front.

[Kad]

DidHeLikeIt is a simpler story. There was a website called StageGrade, essentially Metacritic for theatre (and a more streamlined and better curated version of Show-Score). It was the best site for seeing critic reviews and consensus for New York theatre. Davenport acquired the site when the partner company could no longer host it, and, when the site crashed, did not fix it and, rather, had the url reroute to his own site, DidHeLikeIt (which it still does).

What Happened to StageGrade

[Rainah]

The thing that bugs me about Deaf West kickstarter is that if he'd been honest, I feel like he's still get a lot of support. If he'd said, "look, we're performing at the tonys because we want it preserved and we feel strongly about getting the message out there. However, it's very expensive to do so, especially if we don't get anything commercial out of it, and we're looking for donations to defray some of the costs." Insert some feel-good stuff about how wonderful the community is and how he knows they'll support the production in this.

I've seen fans rally behind much stupider stuff. You may not get quite as many donations, but I feel like you'd get most, and you keep your integrity.

 

But again, it comes back to my point. Davenport is manipulative. ALL producers are. Davenport is just bad at hiding it.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Got a lot of nerve criticizing crowdfunding to begin with, considering his Godspell even happened at all, in large part, because of it.

Also, I don't think anyone here was denying that producers are manipulative; to a certain extent, it's part of their profession. He takes it to a near criminal level, to the point that even people working in his office tell prospective partners "You don't want no part of this ****" like the person they're speaking to is Dewey Cox.

[HogansHero]

@Rainah, as someone who has been around a long time, what he does is not what "other producers" do. You can believe that if you want, but the one thing you can't believe other producers do is fail consistently. Or (ironically) also have the temerity to charge people to "teach" them how to produce. One can drink the Merrick kool-aid if one wants, but Merrick was a successful producer. It's kinda what producing is all about, no? If you want to produce things without fretting over commercial success, start a non-profit. (Wouldn't surprise me if he tries that too.)

[SomethingPeculiar]

He has been "teaching" producing as long as he's been doing it, as a way to cultivate investors. If he can bring in new people and new audiences, that's fantastic, but it's odd to monetize something when you are a novice. Would you want to learn about acting from Ian McKellen and Glenn Close, or would you rather learn it from someone who's been in a couple of indie films?

He has a spotty record as a co-producer, and he's only produced 5 Broadway shows as the lead, decision-making producer (Godspell, Macbeth, Spring Awakening, Once on This Island, Band Back Together – and only Macbeth came close to recouping so far).

I appreciate his enthusiasm for the biz, though.

[JSquared2]

Ken is a textbook example of someone who was born on third base (he's a trust fund baby) and thinks he hit a triple.  

Another example --- he runs a service where he charges unsuspecting writers to "professionally review and evaluate" their scripts --- and then passes the work off to his unpaid interns and minimum wage office "slaves".  

The funniest part is that he honestly believes that all of his producing "innovations" are groundbreaking ideas that will change the world --- when in actuality they're all just old half-baked ideas that no one has ever implemented because they make no business sense whatsoever.

 

[CurtainPullDowner]

He's a TONY Winning Producer and a Daddy.

Shame on him.

[raddersons]

Not to mention, anyone notice Afterglow isn't on Did He Like It?

[haterobics]

raddersons said: "Not to mention, anyone notice Afterglow isn't on Did He Like It?"

Did you notice there are only 6 total Off-Broadway reviews?

[Kad]

Davenport didn't produce Afterglow. He just owns the venue.