Theatrical Release

Harvey Weinstein, the co-chairman of the Weinstein Company and co-founder of Miramax Films, is involved in movies, television, and every other facet of the entertainment business. Today, though, he's a blogger, and you can only read him on Portfolio.com.

Live theater is the oldest form of entertainment. Without theater, there would be no movies. Without movies, I would not be writing this blog. My passion for movies is known, but less well-known is my immense respect for live theater. Growing up in Queens, Broadway was only a subway ride away, and the posters about upcoming shows were all around me. And Broadway is apparently still just a subway ride away--as the New York Post reports this morning.

I remember my first Broadway show. It was The Sound of Music with Mary Martin. The minute the nuns came onstage, I ran out of the theater and started running through the streets, with my father running closely behind. By the time he caught up with me, I was outside of the cinema, and then we both went in to see Goldfinger instead.

Over the past 10 years we have been honored to help see Tony Award-winning and nominated productions such as August: Osage County, Boeing-Boeing, The Real Thing, Mamma Mia, Frost/Nixon, and Rock and Roll, and the box-office recordbreaking production of The Producers come to life on the stage. Like movies, theater appeals to a wide range of people, and we will continue to work to provide something that everyone will enjoy.

And this season I'm so thrilled that we are involved with Working Title's Billy Elliot that my friend Stephen Daldry is directing, who also just finished shooting a new film for us called The Reader with Kate Winslet. We also worked on The Hours with Stephen, and we're involved with Dolly Parton and 9 to 5, in addition to The Seagull, with the incomparable Kristin Scott Thomas. She's a longtime friend, whom we worked with on The English Patient, and who, after seeing her performance in London, I knew that this was a production I wanted to be involved with.

Unfortunately, a lot of stage productions are often ignored in favor of big-budget movies and other forms of entertainment by audiences, producers, and the media. The same drive and ambition that propels the movie industry drives theater as well, but perhaps requires even more commitment, something that too many people are willing to shy away from, because the profit projections might not have as many zeros after it.

That is why I am grateful to have been given this forum to talk about the theater projects I'm so proud to work on that, unfortunately, don't receive the same attention by the media as my films.

It is a shame they don't, but I can say that bringing projects like Finding Neverland, Shakespeare in Love, Chocolat, Cinema Paradiso, and Shall We Dance to the stage will be just as fun, challenging, and exciting as it was to bring them to the big screen. Not to mention, our upcoming show based on Pink Floyd's incredible album The Wall.

While it may be the oldest form of entertainment, theater is also one of the greatest and most challenging. It deserves to be celebrated as such.