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Verve Expands Theater Presence, Signing John Doyle, Nick Stafford, Other Key Creators (EXCLUSIVE)

Brent Lang
·2 min read

Verve has expanded its presence in the theater space and bolstered its East Coast operations with key signings.

The agency has added a dozen award-winning and award-nominated writers and directors to its theater team headed, which is headed by veteran literary agent Chris Till. These clients include Tony Award-winning writers Greg Morrison (“The Drowsy Chaperone”), Nick Stafford (“War Horse”), Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann (“Urinetown,” “The Sting”) and Stew (“Passing Strange”); as well as Tony Award-winning director John Doyle (“Sweeney Todd,” “The Color Purple”).

Verve also now represents Tony Award-nominated writers Heidi Rodewald (“Passing Strange”), Claudia Shear (“Dirty Blonde”) and writer-director Emily Mann (“Having Our Say”). Mann also directed the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Anna in the Tropics.” Other recent Verge signings include Kimberly Senior, director of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Disgraced”; Chris D’Arienzo writer of the Tony Award-nominated “Rock of Ages”; and Scott Schwartz, director of the new West End musical “The Prince of Egypt.”

Till joined Verve this year from CAA and promptly launched a New York outpost, making the agency bi-costal. Till has been tasked with growing Verve’s East Coast presence in all areas including theatre, talent, unscripted and publishing. The expansion has come as theaters remain largely closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“We are grateful to continue to find unique and exciting voices to join Verve,” the partners said in a statement. “We are proud that in the face of intense challenge and systemic change to our industry we have grown our client bases and teams, including the launch of our New York office, our Talent Team and Books-to-Screen Team and key hires like Chris Till, and have maintained 100% of our employee workforce that are being paid without reduction.”

Along with Till, Verve has added key hires including Sean Grumman who came over from WME to launch the talent team, Chris Lupo joining from Chernin Entertainment to launch books-to-screens and a handful of key agents have joined from ICM, Gersh & 360 Management.

Verve was the first agency to sign the WGA Code of Conduct and the first agency to respond to the #PayUpHollywood movement with a 25-40% raise for all its assistants.

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