New Talent Agency Bans Employees From Knowing Anything About the Shows They're Scouting
Inspired by a hit producer's advice not to look for a hit, the agency now sends staff into theatres wearing sound-dampening headphones and mild confusion.
The agency, founded on the principle that the surest way to find a great show is to actively avoid trying, requires all talent scouts to sign a document promising never to check a program, read a poster, or ask a single question about what they are about to see.
New hires undergo a three-day onboarding process that consists entirely of being led into unfamiliar rooms and told to sit down. Any scout caught glancing at a flyer on their way into the theatre is sent home and replaced by someone with less information.
"We came together as one house, undecided," said a spokesperson for the agency, before wandering off mid-sentence to attend a show whose title, subject, and starting time were all withheld from them on principle.
The agency's flagship discovery so far is a one-woman play about tax law that a scout stumbled into while searching for a bathroom. Executives describe it as promising, mostly because nobody involved has any idea what it is about.
Company policy now discourages employees from describing their own job to friends, on the grounds that understanding what you do for a living defeats the purpose of doing it.