Little-known theater jobs: Print Shop Manager

Meet the person who manages the scripts, scores and program inserts of Broadway - Garrett Taylor, Print Shop Manager for BWAY Printing and BWAY Headshots, within the Open Jar complex

Garrett Taylor, Print Shop Manager for BWAY Printing and BWAY Headshots

by Ruthie Fierberg, Broadway Briefing and Broadway News (read full article here)

Garrett Taylor didn’t plan on becoming a print shop manager — and maybe if he had been overseeing the production of greeting cards or magazines he wouldn’t have taken the job. But Taylor is the head of Bway Printing and Bway Headshots, Open Jar Studios’ headquarters for printing scores, scripts, program inserts, headshots and résumés. And that theatrical connection is what motivates him.

Growing up in Louisiana, Taylor was first dazzled by theater at around age five, when he was watching his sister in “The Pirates of Penzance.” “I was overwhelmed with the production value and staging. I remember being impressed by the atmosphere, whether or not I could comprehend what I was marveling at,” Taylor recalled. “Any time I’d see a play or movie, I would have this feeling in the back of my mind like, I want to be a part of whatever’s happening here. Ultimately, it’s a series of happy accidents that led me to where I am today.”

Taylor graduated from Louisiana State University with a B.A. in drama and started his career in his home state, where he acted in local regional theater, supervised a Baton Rouge soundstage and served as a theater projectionist (and occasional house manager). After moving to New York City, he served as executive assistant to MCC Theater’s executive director Blake West from 2019-2020. After leaving MCC, Taylor continued to pursue acting.

As a performer, Taylor had been looking for that quintessential “survival job” and discovered the opportunity with Open Jar. He joined Bway Printing in October 2023 as a part-time employee. When Bway Headshots launched in December 2023, Taylor became the full-time manager of both businesses. “What brought me to this job was a complete chance, and yet, now that I’m here, it feels like I was always supposed to be,” he said, noting that the job capitalizes on his resilience, mastery of multitasking and precision.  

Taylor manages five technicians and a delivery and shipping team of more than 10 within the shop located at midtown’s Open Jar. The studio, known for renting rehearsal space and practice rooms, acquired Bway Printing from Michael Rico Cohen in August 2022. Today, Bway Printing cuts approximately 80,000-100,000 inserts, six orders of scripts and scores (each with dozens of copies) and about 2,000 headshots each day. Here, Taylor takes Broadway News inside the printing house.

Broadway News: What does a print shop manager do? How do you define your job?

Taylor: I manage the shop and am responsible for all orders for Bway Printing and Bway Headshots. For scripts and scores, a stage manager for a production, workshop or reading will create an order via the form on the Bway Printing website and provide a PDF of what they want printed as well as a breakdown of quantity of each, etc. Typically, the production will ask to assemble the scores and script into three-ring binders with a cover featuring the name of each actor. These are what you see in many of the “first day of school” photos on Instagram. We pack up the order into boxes that can be delivered to rehearsal halls all over town. 

For some shows, we print one order of scores and scripts and that’s it. For shows in development, we might be asked to print multiple orders as it evolves. One new musical that recently opened sent their rehearsal scripts for us to print (40 to 45 copies). The next day they had rewrites and asked if we could do a reprint for them and turn it around by the end of day. And we did. In fact, we do rush orders all the time.

For program inserts, a stage manager will also submit that order. Some shows will order all of the inserts they will need for several weeks, others do their orders as needed. We might be asked to complete a rush order, deliver them to the theater on the same day in time for the programs to be stuffed. We do a lot of rush orders for inserts. “Hell’s Kitchen” recently had a rush order of 54,000 inserts. After the sheets are printed, we put the copies into our electronic cutter (which can chop through up to 500 sheets of paper at a time), and end up with many many stacks of inserts, rubberbanded together and packed into boxes for delivery.

It’s a similar process with headshots and résumés of receiving orders, printing, cutting and packaging. Throughout these different projects, we have to keep a constant eye on supplies.

With whom do you work with on a daily basis?

Taylor: Ultimately, I report to the CEO Jeff Whiting and to Michael Wysong (our director of sales and special projects); the Print Shop falls under his purview. I work with a number of helpful staff who handle the print assignments when I am off, as well as Hugh Hysell who heads up our customer service department and marketing. Under me, we have a pool of on-call staff who handle our big deliveries. 

What does a typical day at work look like for you?

Taylor: The first thing is check to see if any urgent script, score or insert orders came in overnight. If so, I start on them right away. Then, I warm up the machine that makes the headshots and start those orders while the other machines are working on script, score and insert orders. I’ll head to the post office to drop off headshot orders that are being shipped. Then, back to printing, keeping an eye on the workload and any rush orders that come in. It all sounds easy, but each project is quite time-consuming. A single insert order can take two to four hours to complete.

What is the part of your job that you never tire of?

Taylor: The people. Every person who works here at Open Jar is also an artist of some sort; we all understand this world and we care about it. Personally, I take my work very seriously. Sure, it can be stressful and sometimes a little overwhelming because of deadlines. But, we get it. We know where shows are coming from when they have an urgent need for a new job to be done ASAP. There’s also the fun thrill of being in a place where there are so many artists working at any given time and spotting celebrities who come through the doors. I never get tired of that.

What are some of the challenges of your job?

Taylor: The biggest challenge is tracking and meeting the deadlines for each order. There are  times when we inevitably get pileups, where everybody wants everything on the same day at the same time. For instance, for many shows that start rehearsal at 9 a.m. on a Monday, we won’t get the printing order for scripts and scores until Friday evening. Technically, we’re not open on Saturday or Sunday, but we print lots of scripts and scores on Saturdays. We will meet those quick deadlines. 

Tell me a story that you’ll never forget from a day on the job.

Taylor: There was a particular day this past summer when we had seven shows submit separate orders in the same hour, which included a number of full scripts, scores and a lot of inserts. All of them were rush orders for the next day. In addition, there were 40-plus headshot orders to be printed with the same deadline as the show orders. We love to print everyone’s projects, but on that particular day, all of the machines were feeling under the weather; we had service repair teams in and out all day. Needless to say, it was a pretty challenging 24 hours. All of the orders were ready on time, and it felt so good when so many of the people involved in those productions expressed their gratitude for [us] coming through for them in such a pinch. They couldn’t have known much effort went into that day, but their acknowledgement meant a lot. This collaborative spirit of understanding (that is always present in theater) resonates, especially when times get tough.

What is Broadway to you?

Taylor: Broadway is a spectacle working in tandem with logistics. This may seem like a generalization, but I’m wedged right in the middle of the creative and the business side of this collaboration, so I see both sides of the coin on a daily basis. Whether I’m working the printers or trodding the boards, I am a part of “breathing life” into Broadway. Broadway means everything to me and it is as much a part of me as I am of it.

If you could change one thing about your job or Broadway or theater, what would it be?

Taylor: It would be great to have even more machines and more space. We had a day when all of our high-volume copiers went down, and as there were firm deadlines on a number of rush orders, we had to find a quick solution, so we went to the showroom at the company from which we lease our machines and ran our job orders there. Their whole floor turned into a Broadway script, score and insert print house. The staff at the showroom felt “fancy” because they suddenly worked “on Broadway.” Still, more machines would be nice.

What’s one thing you wish audiences understood better about theater?

Taylor: It takes an army to create the theater to entertain you.

What do you wish industry insiders understood better about your job or theater from your perspective?

Taylor: Inserts are definitely the most time-consuming order. I’d love there to be a large awareness of this piece of the puzzle in hope that insert orders are submitted earlier. Pretty please.