Jeffrey Seller

Jeffrey Seller (born 1964)[1] is an American theatrical producer best known for his work on Rent (1996), Avenue Q (2003), In the Heights (2008), and Hamilton (2015), as well as inventing Broadway's first rush ticket and lottery ticket policies.

Jeffrey Seller
Born1964 (age 58–59)
Alma materUniversity of Michigan (1986)
OccupationProducer
Years active1996 – present

Biography

Raised in a Jewish family,[2] Seller is a 1986 graduate of the University of Michigan. After school, he moved to New York City where he worked, as a publicist, booking agent and producer.[3] With his business partner Kevin McCollum he produced three Best Musical Tony Award-winning Broadway shows; Rent (1996), Avenue Q (2003), and In the Heights (2008).

With increasingly expensive Broadway ticket prices, Seller and McCollum invented Broadway's first rush ticket policy early on in the production of Rent. The idea was to keep the show accessible for people “in their 20s and 30s, artists, Bohemians—the people for whom Jonathan Larson wrote the show.” A select number of front row tickets would be sold for $20 on a first come per-serve basis. Rush tickets became so popular that people began to sleep on the streets outside the theater to get a spot at the front of the line. Out of concern for the safety for those who participated in the Rush policy, Seller and McCollum created Broadway's first lottery ticket policy, which kept cheap tickets accessible to a young audience by selling $20 tickets to the winners of a drawing.[4]

Together Seller and McCollum also produced De La Guarda (1998), Andrew Lippa's The Wild Party (2000), High Fidelity (2006), [title of show] (2008), the revival of West Side Story (2009), and Bengal Tiger at the Bagdad Zoo (2011). They also executive produced the 2005 film adaption of Rent.[5] In 2012 McCollum and Seller ended their 21-year partnership.[6]

Seller went on to produce Sting's musical The Last Ship (2014) based on the concept album of the same name. After working with Lin-Manuel Miranda on In the Heights, he produced Miranda's next show, Hamilton (2015).[7][8] Hamilton has gone on to receive widespread critical acclaim and commercial success. In June 2016, Hamilton received 11 Tony awards of a record-breaking 16 nominations, including a Best Musical win for Seller, his fourth Tony Award overall and his first since his separation from McCollum.

Shortly after the debut of Hamilton, Seller directed a workshop of a musical made from Jules Feiffer’s young-adult novel, The Man in the Ceiling.[9]

In March of 2021, Seller took the "Hamilton" production to Australia, selling more than 250,000 tickets before the first preview, which Seller stated was "the largest advance in the history of Australia."[10]

References
  1. "Jeffrey Seller". Playbill. Archived from the original on February 28, 2022. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
  2. Tablet Magazine: "Dream Team To Produce Pilot of Michael Sokolove’s ‘Drama High’ - Two Jewish producers—Jeffrey Seller of ‘Hamilton’ and Jason Katims of NBC’s ‘Friday Night Lights’—will help create a pilot for Sokolove’s critically-acclaimed book about high school theater in Levittown, PA" by By Zoë Miller Archived October 23, 2017, at the Wayback Machine retrieved October 22, 2017
  3. "History, Travel, Arts, Science, People, Places | Smithsonian". www.smithsonianmag.com. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved October 8, 2015.
  4. "From Sleeping on the Streets to Swiping on a Screen: The Evolution of Rush Tickets From Rent to Digital Lotteries - Playbill.com". playbill.com. Archived from the original on January 13, 2017. Retrieved October 10, 2015.
  5. "Jeffrey Seller". IMDb. Archived from the original on April 8, 2016. Retrieved October 8, 2015.
  6. "Producing Partnership Behind 'Rent' and 'Avenue Q' Comes to an End". ArtsBeat. January 6, 2012. Archived from the original on October 24, 2017. Retrieved October 8, 2015.
  7. Sun, Rebecca (April 5, 2016). "'Hamilton': Who's Making Millions Off Broadway's Hottest Show". The Hollywood Reporter. New York. Archived from the original on April 8, 2016. Retrieved April 8, 2016.
  8. "Jeffrey Seller | IBDB: The official source for Broadway Information IBDB: The official source for Broadway Information". www.ibdb.com. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015. Retrieved October 8, 2015.
  9. Sokolove, Michael (April 5, 2016). "The C.E.O. of 'Hamilton' Inc". The New York Times Magazine. New York. Archived from the original on April 8, 2016. Retrieved April 8, 2016.
  10. Cooper, Nathanael (March 18, 2021). "Hamilton sets Australian box office record with more than 250,000 tickets sold". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on October 30, 2021. Retrieved April 8, 2021.
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