We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katharine Quinn a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Katharine, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I fell in love with musical theater as a toddler and Broadway when I was 9. There’s a Nietzsche quote: “We have art in order not to die of the truth.” Theater is an age old tradition. It helps us make sense of the world and bring us together to be present in community in a way that little else does–especially in this digital age. Ironically, I’m finding social media to be a remarkable tool to educate people about what theater is out there right now. Digital leading to in person experiences.

Broadway is struggling right now. 9/10 Broadway shows don’t make their money back. Our churn rate of shows is remarkably high. There are seats available at most shows. The costs are enormous and we haven’t kept up with marketing in a digital age. My mission is to bring NEW theatergoers into the space, entertain and serve our current theater lovers, create fan-forward digital Broadway media, and create a healthier Broadway economy.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I run a Broadway media company called And That’s Showbiz. We do social media marketing, influencer marketing, partnerships, and digital media for Broadway brands. We also create our own bespoke media.

I worked professionally as an actor for 8 years (touring, working for Disney, performing around the country), then pivoted to Directing/Choreographing, and then the world shut down just as I started to feel real momentum in NYC. I fell in love with Barlow and Bear writing the Bridgerton musical live on TikTok during the pandemic, and wanted to shout it from the rooftops. Evidently, TikTok was the rooftops. Within a couple of weeks and a few TikToks about Barlow and Bear and the broader state of digital media on Broadway, I had 40K followers and a new niche platform. Theater returned, I began working on Broadway as a writing assistant, and simultaneously my social media content was bringing people to the Broadway shows I was working on because I made content around them. Composer Jason Howland took me to lunch last summer (2023) and essentially said he wanted me to market his pre-Broadway adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Through a WILD turn of events, I did. We exited an out of town production with about 75K followers cross platform and announced a Broadway run just a few weeks later. With no plans to start a Broadway social media agency, I did. We have the highest following cross-platform of any show in the 2023-2024 Broadway season and it’s been a truly incredible year.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

My career has been a JOURNEY of pivots.

Advice I wish I’d received sooner (but am glad I received at all) was “you don’t have to make the RIGHT choice, you just have to make the next one.” There is so much pressure on young people and/or people facing large choices in their adult lives to make the “right” choice. And the truth is–there isn’t always a “right” choice. There’s the next one. Try to remove some of the pressure for yourself, learn from the choice you make, and then if it isn’t right, choose the next one.

I’m a serial entrepreneur. From upselling Pokemon cards to kids in my class in 6th grade, to shoe painting, to making a fitness app and online fitness business, to getting into Business Schools for grad school and deciding whether to make a career pivot, to being an actor, then director choreographer, then Broadway marketer and producer–I’m grateful for ALL of it.

As a startup entrepreneur, people always wanted me to deliver the pitch. I could tell a story because of my theater training.

In theater, I’m grateful for the business acumen I gained building companies that failed.

All of it has been valuable. All of it has ultimately served the journey I’m on now.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

TikTok pundits quipped The Great Gatsby would be lucky to run for 30 days–90 tops. (We’re currently one of 3 shows sustaining in our season through the New Year.)

We were not a critical darling. It has always felt the odds were stacked against us. (It must also be said: I love the show, I love and respect the people who built it, and I would NOT have done my job as successfully if there weren’t so much incredible work and talent in and around the show to highlight.) On top of this, I came into Gatsby on Broadway as the new kid who accidentally poached a social account from a Big Broadway Agency. And I had to work with them in tandem on this project.

I had never built a report deck. I had never worked within an agency. Hell, I had never worked in Broadway marketing. My colleagues were poised to greatly dislike and resent me. (Wouldn’t I feel similarly if, 10 years from now, that happened to my established company? Can’t blame them.) It was honestly fantastically hard. I wanted to try a lot of new things and received a LOT of pushback. I worked slowly, strategically. I reported the fantastic numbers and growth we were seeing weekly, gently offered the new ideas I wanted to pursue (some were shot down, some I sort of asked forgiveness for, and some were approved) and in time, there was buy-in. And better yet, the assets I produced became very valuable to other teams. Photos we captured with my team ended up in Elle Magazine, national press outlets. Organic social regularly pushes to paid. Partnerships formed organically through the work. The team is copasetic at this point, but boy, was it a journey to get here.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.katharinequinn.com
• Instagram: @itskatharinequinn
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katharinequinn
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbCovViPYejVCNrfny6xM7Q
• Other: And That’s Showbiz Channels:
  @andthatsshow.biz (TikTok, Youtube, Instagram)
  www.andthatsshow.biz

Image Credits

Tia Byington Photography, Rebecca Michelson Photography, Mundells Modern Pixels