Kenny Wax, who recently received an MBE for his services to Charity and to the Arts, is the founder of Kenny Wax Productions, an independent theatrical production company based in London.
The company has produced seven shows with Mischief Theatre, as well as the award-winning shows including SIX, Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World and Hey Duggee Live.
We caught up with Kenny to find out what it takes to make successful UK theatre in 2024 and beyond.
Kenny Wax MBE
What inspired you to be a producer?
‘This will be a surprising response but in the mid 1980s I went to see a musical called Me And My Girl at the Adelphi Theatre. It starred Robert Lindsay who I’d seen at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester a couple of times in the previous years. I was a fan. His co-star was an unknown actress called Emma Thompson. Together they made magic on stage and the show was so joyous. I’m not even sure that I knew what a producer did, but that was the time I decided that was what I wanted to be. And my own ‘homage’ to Me And My Girl was my production of Top Hat (which I hope some of you saw a few years ago) which spread the same sort of whimsical unadulterated happiness throughout the auditorium.
Other shows which followed in the same decade were Les Misérables, The Phantom Of The Opera and Miss Saigon. So, for an aspiring would be producer, I had a very good producing role model in Cameron Mackintosh.’
What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started?
‘That it would be alright in the end. That the struggle would be worth the uncertainty throughout the journey. But would it have been the same?
On a couple of occasions, I’ve been close to giving up. If not close to bankruptcy, then certainly feeling that I can’t put myself and my wife through the ups and down, time after time.
I have been producing for over 30 years and as well as the musicals, we’ve had a lot of fun with the Mischief team on the ‘Goes Wrong’ shows. We’ve also produced a great number of kids shows over the years, more than a dozen. I’m extremely proud that we have given many young people their first theatre going experience.’
Kenny Wax productions that have visited our venues. How many have you seen?
