Bill Rosenfield: 'The record company sacked me, so I became a writer'

If, like me, you are an avid collector of original cast albums of musicals, the chances are you will have many albums that were produced by Bill Rosenfield, who oversaw and recorded some 68 Broadway cast albums in a decade-long tenure at the helm of RCA/BMG’s artists and repertoire department. It was during this time that he became a personal friend of mine. But in 2002, in the wake of 9/11 and coinciding with the rise of digital technology and drop in hard-copy record sales, the label laid him off, abandoning the relative specialism of original cast recordings that – with rare exceptions such as Hamilton – rarely chart.

“Even before 9/11, it had become very clear in the previous year and a half to two years that some kind of correction needed to take place, because the industry was gone. The record stores were closing, no one was buying records and digital downloads were only just beginning.” The company took the moment to reorganise 1,400 people out of their jobs, “and I was one of them”.

Defying F Scott Fitzgerald’s famous assertion that “there are no second acts in American lives”, Rosenfield has set up his stall as a writer. He moved to London in 2002, partly because his long-time partner (and now husband) Gary Gunas, a Broadway theatre executive, was transferred to work for Clear Channel’s theatre department – but it also facilitated his own change in direction.

“In New York I’d had a high-profile job in a very small community, and I would see all those theatre people socially. But here I was a blank page and could say: ‘I’m writing now’.” For a while, he continued to act as a consultant in the world of cast recordings, helping out when people called on him because of his expertise in the area; but in 2009, after doing one last cast recording for the Broadway revival of Hair, he awoke to a realisation. “I suddenly thought: ‘I don’t know what this industry is any more; I have no business answering people’s questions about it.’ I also realised that if I wanted to be taken seriously as a playwright in that relatively small theatre community in New York and also in London, I had to stop doing the other job.”

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Q&A: Bill Rosenfield

What was your first theatrical job? Usher at various theatres (in downtown Boston).

What was your first non-theatrical job? During my first year out of university, I temped throughout Manhattan. After that, all of my jobs – odd and otherwise – have, in some way or other, been theatrical or entertainment business-oriented.

What do you wish someone had told you when you were starting out? That I should’ve gone to Yale. Actually, I used to say that a lot, but about 10 years ago I stopped. My life would’ve been different if I’d gone there, maybe better, maybe worse, I’ll never know. The point is that I like the life I have. So I guess, in the scheme of things, I actually got the advice that I was supposed to get.

Who is your biggest influence? I was privileged to have had a magnificent professor and great friend named Howard Siegman who not only taught me to believe in myself, my taste and my passion for the theatre; but also taught me how to laugh at myself and embrace my eccentricities. There is not a day that goes by where I don’t apply something that he taught me to my way of being.

If you hadn’t been a writer, what would you have done? I have no idea. But I would’ve found a way to enjoy it.

Do you have any theatrical superstitions or rituals? I’m always early to the theatre. I’m happy to sit in the auditorium and be bored waiting for the show to begin rather than arriving and drinking in the lobby.

He duly wrote an autobiographically inspired play about a 16-year-old boy in Boston who loses his virginity to an older actor staying at a residential hotel called 46 Beacon (an address that gives the play its title) in the city while he appears in a play. “The young boy is very much me. One of my fears about the play is that people will look at the older man as grooming me, but I was ready for it – there was no manipulation. We both wanted the same thing; at no point should it make the audience feel uncomfortable – it’s not creepy.”

Nearly 40 years after the play is set, I found myself playing a peripheral but significant role myself in the next part of his journey. I took him to see a play at London’s Hope Theatre one night in February 2015, which had newly arrived on the theatre scene, and introduced him to artistic director Matthew Parker. “I wouldn’t have said anything to him if I hadn’t been under the delusion that my agent had sent him this play, so asked him if he’d read it. He said he’d not even seen it and asked me to send it to him. So I did. But I only had the nerve to say it because I thought he’d already had it.”

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Bill Rosenfield’s top tips for aspiring playwrights


1. Believe in yourself and your work. You’re the one facing the blank page. If you don’t believe, how can you ask others to?
2. Don’t take the rejection of a play as a rejection of you as a person.
3. Treasure the process and challenges of writing, because that might be as far as it gets.

Parker got back to him within a week – and offered to showcase the play across two weekends. “A lot of the people who were brave enough to come on the first weekend called a lot of people who weren’t brave enough to have seen it then and reassured them: ‘It’s okay, you’ll have a good time’. So by the second weekend, they were selling out.” But despite a few nibbles, nothing further seemed to be happening to it, until they were invited to reprise it at a festival of new work being held at the Above the Arts in London’s theatre district.

A nameless producer bit and offered them a slot at another theatre. But it was rescinded when they apparently failed to meet a deadline to confirm it. Rosenfield then called ATG, who agreed to a transfer – with a new director and cast now on board – to Trafalgar Studios 2, where it is now previewing ahead of opening officially on April 11.

It has taken quite a path to get there. He acknowledges his own luck – “so many people don’t get this far” – but also it’s proof that perseverance can pay off.

CV: Bill Rosenfield

Year and place of birth: 1954, Columbus, Ohio

Training: Hofstra University, BA dramatic literature

Landmark production: 46 Beacon, Trafalgar Studios 2, April 5-29, 2017
Awards: Drama Desk award for preservation of cast recordings (1992), Drama Desk award for contribution to the theatre (2002), Richard Rodgers award
(2006)
Agent: Alan Brodie/Kate Brower  alan@alanbrodie.com


46 Beacon runs at Trafalgar Studios, London, until April 29