One for the Money, Two for the Show

By Bruce Goldfarb '85

Jan Hughes' love of the stage was unrequited. After graduating from UMBC, Hughes, theatre '81, headed to the bright lights of New York City with ambitious plans of becoming an actor.

"The problem was, I wasn't very talented," he says. "Once you move to New York, you really find out how bad you are."

Through a fortuitous turn of events, Hughes, 49, found a way to apply his theatrical skills and experience to a lucrative area: producing commercials and conducting live events for large corporate clients. Chicago-based Jan Hughes Productions specializes in "business theater," staging teleconferences, meetings and training sessions for clients such as Allstate, Whirlpool and Sears.

With budgets ranging from $100,000 to millions of dollars, companies conduct meetings to bring together leadership from offices around the world, launch new products and train sales staff.

Acting as a general contractor, Hughes handles all the arrangements to produce the event--broadcasting by satellite or Web; hiring film or video crews; finding designers, artists and photographers; employing local crews to build sets; and coordinating all the professionals involved in pulling it off.

At Allstate's recent annual meeting, Hughes created a set for the insurer's chief executives and 200 of the company's top business unit leaders. "We built risers and seating, made it look like the Globe Theater (in England). It had a very intimate feel," he says. "It's all about creating a unique experience for them."

For a client holding its annual meeting in Singapore, Hughes hired local actors and traditional dancers for an event that was broadcast to other corporate offices around the world. "We'll craft their corporate message so that the home office knows what's going on in Singapore," he says.

Hughes credits the UMBC theatre program for giving him the background to succeed in the corporate arena. "I use my degree every day," he says. "Most theatre graduates can't say that."

In 2000, Hughes was named one of the nation's "Top 100 Producers" by AV Video Multimedia Producer magazine. "I was quite shocked, because there are tens of thousands of producers in the country," he says. "I don't even have a subscription to the magazine. But my clients do; they all saw it."

Along with stand-up comic Tim Walkoe and actor/writer Darryl Warren, Hughes also formed Darn Fine Productions to bring comedy into the corporate training environment.

"Unfortunately, training today has come down to a PowerPoint presentation," Hughes explains. "They get everybody in a room, turn the lights down and sit through 150 slides of charts that nobody can read. There's no training, no communication."

The Darn Fine crew teaches basic acting techniques, improvisation and the fundamentals of movement. "We train presenters to listen to their audience and how to know when their audience is not listening to them," says Hughes. "The goal is to provide an experience that helps them remember what you've been trying to tell them."

Invariably, comedy plays a prominent role. To demonstrate a new model refrigerator to sales staff, one member of the group assumed the persona of a goofy mathematician who pontificated on the Pythagorean theorem. "They'll laugh, but they'll know everything there is to know about that refrigerator," says Hughes. "They learn more, and they enjoy the experience."

Theatre Department Chairperson Wendy Salkind, who directed Hughes in her first stage production at UMBC in 1980, remembers him as "a more mature student who had a good, ironic sense of humor," she says. "To hear that he's in any kind of improvisation or comedy troupe makes perfect sense."