Erich Bergen: From Performer To Multimedia Producer
By Noah Golden
Noah Golden is a journalist and critic who has been contributing to OnStage Blog since 2019.
When the entertainment industry and Broadway shut down due to COVID-19, it caused many professionals to reevaluate the focus of their career. For Erich Bergen, it meant shifting from a successful acting career to being the founder and lead creative for 6W Entertainment, a production company that has worked on many high-profile live-streamed and in-person events, including the “Rosie O’Donnell Show Reunion,” the Times Square Stephen Sondheim “Sunday” tribute and many non-profit fundraisers.
Born and raised in Manhattan, Bergen started performing from a young age. He was discovered by a manager at an after-school theater program and began doing commercials, voice-over work and off-Broadway plays. A self-confessed “die-hard theater kid,” Bergen spent his summers at famed performing arts camp Stagedoor Manor (alongside Sebastian Stan, Natalie Portman, Bryce Dallas Howard and Lea Michele) and studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts. At age 20, he was cast as Bob Gaudio in the first national tour of "Jersey Boys” and then spent the next three years performing in the show on the road and in Las Vegas. He later reprised his role in the 2014 Clint Eastwood film adaptation. Following the film, Bergen got cast on Téa Leoni’s CBS political drama “Madam Secretary,” which ran for six seasons. He was in all 120 episodes. During his run on “Secretary,” Bergen also made his Broadway debut in “Waitress,” portraying Dr. Pomatter alongside Katherine McPhee’s Jenna. He later returned to “Waitress” three more times during Shoshana Bean, Jennifer Nettles, and Stephanie Torns’ tenure.
But at the very start of the pandemic, a chance DM rerouted Bergen’s career into a thriving video production and event planning business. To learn more, I talked to Bergen over Zoom. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How did your production company 6W Entertainment come about?
Erich Bergen [EB]: It’s wild. I've always had a producer's brain. Throughout the years, I've put together various benefit concerts and things. But in early March 2020, it was one of those last days before full shelter in place. They’d just announced Broadway would be shutting down for a month due to COVID. I was watching the news and my first thought was that we needed to do something to direct money to the Actors Fund because I knew that my community was going to be in a tough situation. I immediately thought of Rosie O'Donnell because, in my childhood, Rosie was so instrumental in being a champion for Broadway. I thought we should do some fundraiser with Rosie and I sent her a DM because we kind of knew each other. She responded immediately and said, "yes, I'll do whatever." I suggested we do a one-night reboot of her talk show.
But I had no clue how that would actually get done. I called ["Madam Secretary" producer] Lori McCreary and she connected me to someone at YouTube who said to find a partner with a good YouTube page. So, I called Broadway.com editor-in-chief Paul Wontorek and Craig Burns from Telsey Casting, who helped me get all the talent. We put it together in a week. We were really flying by the seat of our pants. It ended up being the first of these celebrity fundraising events in the time of COVID. It was unprecedented. I didn't realize the world was watching, but when we put out the press release, we got calls from all over the world. There was a review in the New York Times. Then I got a call from [“Dear Evan Hansen” composer] Benj Pasek, who is a long-time friend, and he said, "We want to do something virtual for a Passover seder." We went off to the races and created the "Saturday Night Seder," which raised, at this point, something like 3 million dollars for the CDC Foundation. From there, the flood gates opened. My world literally changed overnight. I started getting all these calls from TV shows, award shows, talk shows, galas, non-profits asking me how we did it. Did I have some secret – by the way, the answer was no. Then other people wanted to hire me. I put together this show for UNICEF called "UNICEF Won't Stop" and it did so well as a virtual fundraiser that we got a call from MSNBC that they wanted to put it live on the air the following week. So, the third virtual event I did ended up becoming a television special a week later. Suddenly it was baptism by fire. To this very day, it's been a series of referrals.
What have been some of your favorite projects since?
EB: By the end of that first summer of 2020, I had worked with everyone from Cher to President Obama, all virtually. We made some really incredible things. A lot of that was taking events that were normally in-person and converting them to virtual. We were doing a lot in the social impact space. By the second year, we started getting into short-form and social media content. We started getting into consulting and in-person events. One of our first big ones was the Central Park concert that happened last summer, spearheaded by Clive Davis. We worked with Michael Kors, God's Love We Deliver, Bring Change to Mind, and Girls Inc. We just directed a series of PSAs with John Legend for his organization Free America. It's been non-stop and it's all accidental.
What has it been like to work with such big names right out of the gate?
EB: It comes down to using the kind of nerd knowledge that I have. I was one of those kids who obsessed over MTV and pop music growing up. I was almost encyclopedic in my knowledge about writers and producers. I learned to read by reading the backs of albums. So, all the information that I've taken in over my entire life finally had a purpose outside of trivia night. When I got to work with someone like Clive Davis, I knew his world and how to talk to him. The success of my business is the definition of when preparation meets opportunity. I'm really proud of the work that my team and I have made. It's not only been useful to charities and foundations and brands, but I think we've also done work that has stayed in people's hearts and has been effective in providing comfort during this time. I received incredible messages after the Rosie event. People who were so happy to see it at a time that was so scary and so lonely.
Especially in the early days of the pandemic, people weren’t nearly as familiar with Zoom or live-streaming tools like StreamYard that became so popular. How was it figuring out all the tech elements?
EB: As a kid, I was so obsessed with the technical side of things, so when this first started, I became a kid again just figuring out how it all technically would work. A lot of my favorite things were when we needed to come up with musical performances. We had to figure out how to produce duets or choir from all around the world and have them not sound like shit. But it got to a point where I needed to surround myself with people who were much smarter than me and could do things I couldn’t. I learned early on that I wanted to focus on the creative side. I didn't want to do the actual pressing of the buttons, but I had to understand the tech limitations and how long it took to actually do things, things rendering. I wanted to learn so that I could help a client get to the best place with their project. On the technical side, there are limitations, but there are also things you can do in the virtual world that you can't do in person. There's nothing better than figuring out how to make art with limitations. It's been quite inspiring.
Can you share any upcoming projects?
EB: We're producing a birthday celebration for Clive Davis' 90th birthday on April 6th. I also just co-produced a series with Clive Davis that started airing March 23rd on Paramount Plus called "Clive Davis' Most Iconic Performances." We have lots of private galas and some in-person events this fall. Most importantly, we're starting to get into the scripted space in television and theater. It's exciting to talk about and work on, but it's never really a thing until it's actually a thing. Until then, it's just a lot of Zoom meetings.
Your life has changed so much in the last few years. What is it like to look back on this tumultuous but ultimately creatively fulfilling journey?
EB: I'm very grateful to the people that have worked with me over the past two years. I've been the face of this company, but the truth is, I have an incredible team standing next to me. They do such incredible work. One of the things I've been most proud of is hiring people who were out of work due to the pandemic and using their skills in different ways, like hiring Broadway stage managers as Zoom stage managers. I'm very proud of the public-facing work that we've done, but I'm equally as proud of the work that we've done behind the scenes.