Mandy Greenfield has been producing theater for her entire career. She spent her earliest professional days in the offices of established commercial producers, started a nonprofit theater company and a for-profit production company, served as an artistic producer for Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) from 2003-2014 and led Williamstown Theatre Festival as artistic director from 2014 before resigning in 2021. Now, Greenfield has announced her own commercial production company: Red Yes Studio.
Through the company, Greenfield is focusing on developing new work.
Greenfield is a writer-driven producer — the relationship specifically between a producer and writer ignites her, and muscular writing draws her to a play or musical. That emphasis on writing is actually evident in her company’s name.
For more than a year during the pandemic, Greenfield found herself mentally paralyzed, unable to read anything on a page. But eventually, in 2021, she reread James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” “It was really the first book, if I’m being honest, that I could disappear into again,” Greenfield told Broadway News. “I was so swept up in the magnitude and glory of that writing, which I experienced very theatrically. It reconnected me with the power of extraordinary writing.” In the final chapter — the most impactful for Greenfield — the words “red” and “yes” — as she put it — “crash up against each other.” Red Yes is now a permanent reminder of transportive writing, the kind Greenfield wants to develop and produce.
Greenfield already has a track record for producing this type of work — albeit under the auspices of institutional theaters. But now she’s ready to dive head-on into the commercial realm. “This sort of sense that an institution is a parachute of some sort, I think is a little bit of an illusion,” Greenfield said, alluding to the fact that nonprofit producing still carries a great deal of risk. But much of that work, specifically theater pieces that originated at Williamstown, continued on to commercial productions.
Six plays and one musical that had been produced by Williamstown under Greenfield’s tenure bowed on Broadway, in particular. Greenfield oversaw world premieres of “The Sound Inside,” “Lempicka” and “The Cost of Living,” the latter of which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. She also co-commissioned and produced “Grand Horizons,” and commissioned and developed “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding.”
While at Williamstown, if a production transferred to another theater, sometimes Greenfield remained involved and sometimes she didn’t. Red Yes puts Greenfield in a position to stay with a project from inception. “I’ve just heard [from artists] over the years how valuable and sustaining the integrity of a process is with a producer that goes the distance,” said Greenfield. “So it seemed high time to conceive [projects] that way, rather than make it and hand it off.”
Current projects
Red Yes already boasts an impressive lineup. For its first venture, the company teamed up with Off-Broadway’s New Group to develop and produce Jessica Goldberg’s new play “Babe,” which began previews on Oct. 29. Starring Marisa Tomei (who Greenfield got on board), “Babe” explores the compromises one woman has made to get to the top of a male-dominated business: record producing.
