Matthew Masten ’09 began his career performing on the stage, but these days he can be found giving directions backstage or behind the camera.
By Oliver Fischer ’19
An executive producer working both on Broadway and in film, Matthew Masten ’09 recognized early on that while he loves acting, his true calling is producing shows.
When Masten arrived at Elon, his musical theater work was no longer limited by the amount of free time he had. “I was living and breathing musical theater,” he says. Elon’s musical theatre program solidified his love for theater and provided him with the necessary environment to flourish. The classes he took allowed him to experience the process of putting together a show from scratch and prepared him for a career in production.
But he didn’t just perform on stage. During his first year on campus, and as part of a global studies assignment, he launched Elon Cares, now an annual concert that aims to raise money for the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS organization and increase awareness for AIDS among his peers. “That was the first time I really produced or directed anything,” Masten says. The success of that event made him realize he had potential for a career behind the scenes. “It’s what I do now and I love it even more than acting,” he adds.
Despite some commonalities, Masten says working in film is very different from working in theater. During a play, you can be in a rehearsal studio and run the show from beginning to end. In a film, you record short scenes that are later put together into a story by the director and editor. When a Broadway show closes, that usually marks the end of a play. But a movie can still be watched on Netflix, Amazon Prime or other streaming services. “The performances live on in that sense,” Masten says.
While being a producer is stressful, he loves producing shows because he gets to do a little bit of everything. “Casting, raising money, working with advertising, working with the choreogra-pher. I get to do it all,” he says. “The idea that I can help create something new that will live on as part of the theatrical canon is the number one thing to me that justifies all of the hard work.”