KGM — Now Closer to the Metal
Broadway keeps adding layers. I'm going the other direction.
There is a concept in computer programming called “close to the metal.” It’s used to signify code that runs directly on hardware rather than through layers of software abstraction.
I recently wrote how Broadway was becoming weighed down by too many firms. Too many collections of people operating under the banner of a firm. Instead of a single lighting designer, orchestrator, or general manager, you now have a whole team of people operating under that banner. And I’m not sure this is ultimately healthy for our industry.
Not so long ago, it didn’t take that many people behind the scenes to put on a Broadway show. There were writers, a director, some designers, a couple of producers, a press agent, and a general manager.
Ad agencies have traditionally been firms, even on Broadway, but the rest of these positions were typically serviced by solo practitioners.
Just a few humans coming up with an idea and figuring out how to execute on it.
But those days are, sadly, a relic. Now, instead of hiring a lighting designer, you’re hiring a lighting designer team, and instead of a general manager, you’re hiring a general management firm.
And in the process, I believe we’ve lost something. We’ve lost this idea of just a few people sitting around a table trying to get something done.
Not to mention driving up the cost of producing on Broadway in the process.
I think something else unfortunate has happened. Those of us who work in the industry have tried to rack up credits like it’s some kind of arms race. “Oh, you worked on six shows last year? Well, I worked on eight.”
But, to what end?
Recently, I turned down a show because I said that my slate was full, and the person wrote back to say, “It’s so great to hear that you’re so busy.”
But I’m not “busy,” at least in the sense that this person implied. I’m working on exactly the number of shows that I want to be working on right now. I’m not busy. I’m satisfied.
The idea that I might turn down work for any reason other than having too much of it seemed genuinely foreign to this person. And that I wasn’t merely busy, I must be so busy.
I’m not foolish enough to believe my new desire to work as a solo practitioner will create a new movement within the industry to slim down. It’s simply how I want to work right now. Over its existence, KGM has been a small firm, a medium firm, and a big firm, and now I don’t want to be a firm at all. I just want to be a guy who shows up, does great work, and works closely beside my clients in a way that stands apart from the crowd.
Now, when you hire KGM, what you’re really hiring is Daniel Kuney.
Which is why, dum-dum-dum, it was time for a new website.
The new website both highlights my return to being a solo practitioner and lets folks know that, as a result, there are only so many shows I can take on.
I’m not trying to advertise that I’m busy or even that I’m being selective. Merely that there’s a natural consequence to choosing to work very closely on only a few shows at a time, which is my time. I can no longer take on a show and punt parts of it off to a junior employee.
If I take on a show, I have to be all in. And given how many hours there are in a day, and that I have a growing family, time is a scarce resource, which means, as a result, so am I.
With that, KGM now enters its new phase. Less abstraction layers. Closer to the metal.
I hope you enjoy the new website. I made it myself.
