Reference
Broadway & Theater Producing Glossary
A working dictionary of Broadway producing, theater finance, and arts philanthropy — written for students, producers, and the merely curious.
Broadway has its own language. Walk into a production meeting and you’ll hear about capitalization and recoupment, general partners and limited partners, weekly running costs and front-of-house grosses — terms that mean something very specific inside the industry and something fuzzier (or wrong) outside it. This glossary is the version Sue Gilad wishes had existed when she first started raising money and reading offering documents: plain English, written from inside the room, with the context that turns a definition into useful knowledge.
Each entry is short on purpose. The goal is to get you from “I’ve heard that word” to “I know what it means and when it matters” in under a minute. Where a term connects to a larger topic — investing in a show, fundraising, scholarships, the producer’s role — the entry links out to a longer guide so you can keep reading without losing the thread.
New to producing? Two good starting points are What is a producer in theater? and the long-form guide Broadway Producing 101. For the money side, the guides on how to fund a Broadway show and investing in Broadway cover capitalization, recoupment, and the realities of backing a show in practical terms.
The glossary grows as new questions come up in mentoring sessions and reader notes. If a term you expected isn’t here yet, it probably will be — and if you’d like to suggest one, the contact page is the fastest way to get it on the list.