Producing ‘Midnight’

At Portland High School, Craig Haffner was a benchwarmer for the football team, played ice hockey whenever he got the chance, dabbled in writing poetry, sang in the choir, performed in plays and discovered his dream career.

“I found that I loved being in the environment of the theater and theater people,” he said in a recent phone interview. “I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process.”

Upon graduating in 1970, Haffner studied at Indiana University in Bloomington with a double major in theater arts and mass communication. He decided early on that “acting was way too tenuous” a profession for someone like himself who had no show business connections. Instead, he focused on “the other side of it, which was the writing/directing/producing area.” When he left Indiana University in 1974, his hope was to go to New York and try his luck on Broadway.

Life had other plans.

Haffner ended up in California and the television industry, where he racked up credits as a writer and producer — he even got an Emmy — but continued to dream of more.

“The original idea was theater,” he said.

So in 2009, when a friend asked for his help with a production of a revival of “Ragtime,” a musical based on the book of the same name by E.L. Doctorow, he jumped at the chance. It was “my first Broadway credit as a co-producer.”

On the night of the premier, Haffner had a fateful conversation with John Berendt, author of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”

It was Nov. 15, 2009.

“I suggested to John that we should think about ‘Midnight’ as a Broadway musical,” said Haffner. “That’s the night the seed was planted.”

Now that seed is ready to bear fruit. 

Rehearsals are set to begin May 7 for a preview of the show at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre from June 25 to Aug. 11. 

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“Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” was published in 1994. The story of people and places related to a 1980s murder trial in Savannah, Georgia, is based on real life but reads more like fiction. Wikipedia classifies the book as a “non-fiction novel.”

The Clint Eastwood movie version starring Kevin Spacey and John Cusack came out in 1997. Berendt had sold the book’s movie rights to make that possible but kept the stage rights thinking that it could someday become a play. Haffner said he seemed surprised by the idea of turning it into a musical.

“I said, ‘Look at what’s been done (in “Ragtime”) with Doctorow’s multiple stories. … It’s really a type of opera, and that’s really — to me — what your Savannah and all of those characters are.’”

For most of the past 15 years, Haffner’s primary focus has been elsewhere. He and production partners Sherry Wright and Hal Luftig have had numerous credits and Tony nominations, but until about 10 months ago, the Berendt project was on the back burner.

“Broadway musicals take a while to find themselves,” said Haffner.

Now, however, it occupies most of his time.

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“I’m living ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil’ 22 of the 24 hours in a day,” he said. “There are a lot of moving parts.”

Haffner describes himself as a creative producer — as opposed to primarily an investor. He likens his role to that of being a parent.

“That means you initiate the project and you do everything that you have to do to grow it. You have to bring the creative team together,” he said. “You have to manage the creative team. You have to put the business part together. You have to raise the money. You have to find the locations. It involves every facet of the business. … You are responsible for everything.”

And, of course, it’s risky.

“There is no financial reward for a Broadway producer until they actually get the show up and get it to break even,” he said. “So it’s really a test to see how much you believe in a project, how steady you are tightrope walking without a net. And it takes years.”

Haffner credits his parents and his Portland upbringing with giving him the even temperament needed to navigate this kind of work successfully. 

And he credits the experience gained during his many years in the television industry.

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Haffner’s first job in California was as a page for CBS. 

In that era, he explained, the three big networks — CBS, NBC and ABC — had page programs “which were in essence kind of an initiation process to sift through college graduates who knew nobody but were willing to work 25 hours a day and nine days a week.” The challenge was to work oneself out of the program by getting hired within the industry or get kicked out after 18 months.

Most of Haffner’s time as a page was spent with MTM Enterprises, the company that produced “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Bob Newhart Show,” “Rhoda” and “Phyllis,” all for CBS.

“It was a very, very open time,” he remembers.

Pages could submit scripts, so Haffner and his writing partner did so.

“My first professional writing credit was with The Mary Tyler Moore Show in December of 1975.”

He continued doing freelance writing for situation comedies but was looking for something steadier. While still in his 20s, he landed a job as a writer/producer/director for on-air promotions and advertising for CBS. 

In the early 1980s, Haffner was offered a job in programming at KABC in Los Angeles, where he eventually became head of programming.

“I really considered that my true master’s and doctorate,” he said.

Programmers were given a budget and “allowed to do pretty much what we wanted as long as we didn’t go over budget and were No. 1 in the ratings. … It wasn’t just creative. You had to understand the business part of it too, which was very appealing to me.”

At the same time, “the business overall was changing” with the advent of basic cable.

In April 1987, Haffner started Greystone Television and Films, which supplied programs for the new cable network A&E and other studios. Because of his experience at KABC, “Greystone got out in front of everyone else as a supplier because we didn’t have a learning curve.”

He was involved in writing, directing and/or producing “The Real West,” a series of stories of the American West hosted by Kenny Rogers, fresh from the success of “The Gambler”; “Civil War Journal,” hosted by Danny Glover, co-star of the “Lethal Weapon” movie franchise; “Brute Force” about military machinery, hosted by George C. Scott of “Patton” fame; and “Remembering World War II,” hosted by Edward Woodward from the original series of “The Equalizer.” (Haffner’s father was a World War II veteran)

The last earned Emmy awards for both Haffner and Woodward.