I always say that producing a Broadway show is like trying to land a plane at JFK.

There are a lot of planes trying to land. Very few runways. So you circle . . . waiting for not just any runway to open up, but the right one.

That’s where we are with The Griswolds’ Broadway Vacation. As of May 28, 2026 (the day of our video check-in), we are in the air. We are waiting for our runway (which is our Broadway theater) to open up for us. And if you’ve ever flown into JFK on a busy night, you know exactly how that feels.

What You Do When You Can’t Land

Here’s the thing about circling: you can either sit there, stare out the window, and go quietly insane — or you can use the time.

We’re using the time.

David Rossmer and Steve Rosen, who wrote every word and every note of this show, are probably rewriting the script as I type this. Donna Feore is thinking about the staging. We are doing serious work on the budget. We are throwing ideas at the wall that, in the pressure cooker of a regular production schedule, we would never have the time or the mental space to seriously consider.

What if we did this? What if we did that? What if we did the thing that sounds completely nuts?

Those are the ideas I love the most. Because in my experience, the ones that sound nuts are exactly the ones that help a show cut through the noise. We can afford to run them down right now. That’s a gift.

The Sponsorship Opportunity Nobody Talks About

Here is something that Broadway does not do well, and it’s not for lack of trying.

Corporate sponsors.

Think about it, folks. When was the last time you saw a corporate sponsor on a Broadway show? Not because there isn’t value there — there absolutely is — but because big corporations plan their marketing budgets a year to eighteen months in advance. By the time a producer realizes they need a partner, they’re eight weeks from opening and the conversation goes like this: “It sounds amazing. We spent our Q1 ’27 budget fourteen months ago.”

I’ve had that conversation. Many times.

But right now, we have something we almost never have: time. Thanks to a great idea from our marketing director, Mary Elizabeth Dina, we are running down potential partnerships and sponsorships right now — in trade, in cash, in ways that could make this show more special and allow us to do things we wouldn’t have the budget for otherwise. That’s one of the most valuable things this holding pattern has given us.

The Hardest Balance in Producing

I want to be honest about something that producers don’t always say out loud.

We have been able to reduce our budget . . . without compromising the show. That sentence sounds simple. It isn’t.

Producers sometimes get a reputation for being cheap. For saying no. For being the person in the room who kills ideas. I understand where that comes from. But here’s the truth: we are theater people. Our instinct is always to give the artists everything they need. That’s why we got into this.

The pull in the other direction is just as real: if the budget is too high, the show can’t run as long. If the show doesn’t run as long, fewer people experience what our writers and director and cast have created. That’s the math that keeps every producer honest.

We’re seeing it play out right now on Broadway. Great shows closing faster than they should. In 2026 and beyond, a lean budget isn’t a compromise. It’s what gives a show a fighting chance.

What Keeps Me Up at Night

The phone.

That’s it. That’s the answer. I’m waiting for a theater owner to call and tell me we have a home. And the thing that makes it genuinely hard to sleep is this: that call could come at any moment. Five minutes from now. Six months from now. I don’t know.

When it does come, everything has to fall into place simultaneously. Will my authors be available? My director? My choreographer? My designers? My stars? Will my advertising agency have room in their schedule? It’s like getting a call that says, “You just won a trip to Hawaii — and it leaves tomorrow.” Great news. Except I have work. And my daughter has a piano recital.

That’s not a complaint. That’s the job. But it’s the part that nobody on the outside fully sees.

A Casting Near-Miss

This month, we came very close.

We had someone. Everything looked right. And then (because we couldn’t commit to an exact when and an exact where) the schedules didn’t line up, and the actor made the right call and took a show they had in hand.

I don’t blame them. Not for a second. A show with a theater beats a show without one, every time. That’s just the reality of this business.

What I know from experience is this: every single time I have lost an actor (and I’ve lost many, sometimes a week before rehearsals) it has always worked out for the best. For everyone. Every time. I trust that. I have to trust that. And it will be true again here.

The Marketing Challenge (And a Team That’s Surprising Me)

Here’s the brief I gave my marketing team: build us an audience. Find the Griswold fans across this country. Get them excited. Have answers by the time we announce.

Oh, and we have no cast to announce. No date. No theater. No tools.

It reminded me of that scene in Apollo 13 — the one where the engineer dumps a box of random parts on the table and says: here’s what you have, now solve the problem. That’s what I handed Mary and the team.

And they are solving it. The ideas coming back to me for how to start building this community before we even have anything to announce have genuinely surprised me. More on that very soon.

Why None of This Shakes Me

Every time I start to feel the weight of it — the waiting, the uncertainty, the Broadway shows closing faster than they should — I look around and see how many people desperately want to be part of this art form.

They’re on Reddit. They’re in the theaters. They’re investing. They’re writing shows. They’re buying tickets.

The musical is not going away. It’s the reason 65% of our Broadway audience is here in the first place. It is, without question, one of the greatest and most specific art forms human beings have ever invented. It goes through seasons. It always comes back.

That’s what I hold onto. And that’s what I’m going to keep building toward.

The runway is coming. I can feel it. And when it does, we are going to be very, very ready to land.

What questions do you have about what it actually takes to get a Broadway show to opening night? Ask me in the comments — I’m an open book.

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