About
Please pardon our appearance…
our website crashed, and we don’t have it quite back to normal yet.
Daniel Group Overview
Mission:
To provide good, wholesome, top-quality, professional theater and other entertainment productions that positively impact audiences.
Current productions:
To Begin With, a one-man stage play inspired by The Life of Our Lord, a little-known book by Charles Dickens, premiered in Minneapolis in 2015, with a successful repeat engagement in 2017. Now, development has begun on a feature film, scheduled for release in 2020. The stage play is expected to tour in the U.S. and U.K. in 2020-2023.
That Wonder Boy, a warm, funny one-man play by author/actor Bob Stromberg, has been produced in 5 cities, and won 3 top awards at the United Solo Theatre Festival in New York City (Best One-Man Show, Best Direction, and the United Solo and Backstage Audience Award).
Triple Espresso—a highly caffeinated comedy, an engaging 3-man stage play, has brought laughter to over 2 million people in 6 countries. It has an amazing track record of repeat business, and has countless opportunities still ahead.
Our desire is that these, and other uplifting and enriching projects, will become available to an ever wider audience and be a bright light in the sometimes dark world of entertainment.
Why The Daniel Group?
The Problem: There are many options in entertainment today, but much of it is of little value: morally bankrupt, often politically motivated, and sometimes poor in quality. Not exactly uplifting! Meanwhile, good, high-quality, positive projects often fail to reach their audiences due to inefficiency, lack of expertise or—most frequently—inadequate funding.
The Solution: The Daniel Group identifies excellent productions and provides and manages the financial and human resources needed to make them competitive and profitable.
A Solid Foundation for Success
Core Values
The Daniel Group strives to be like its Biblical namesake by conducting its business with Competence, Character, Humility, Leadership and Impact.
Structure
With multiple properties & productions, efficient use of personnel and expertise of principals, The Daniel Group can spread risk and lend expertise to several productions at once. Its key personnel are recognized theater professionals with extensive national and international producing experience.
Project Criteria
The Daniel Group chooses intellectual properties carefully and plans a wise and prudent path for the development of each one. Its projects must have high artistic and technical quality, wholesome content, audience appeal and potential impact, and profit potential.
Dennis Babcock, Founder and Executive Producer
Dennis Babcock is a 40-year veteran of the theater industry. He began his professional career as an actor at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis under the direction of Michael Langham. Later, as the Guthrie’s Special Events Producer, he created the Live at the Guthrie series to bring a variety of theatrical and musical artists to the Twin Cities. These included such celebrities as Princess Grace of Monaco, Henry Fonda, James Whitmore, Robin Williams and Julie Harris.
Dennis was the Managing Director of the Pittsburgh Public Theater from 1982-1984 and returned to the Guthrie Theater to serve as General Manager from 1984-1986. Then he formed PalmTree Productions, Inc. which produced such acclaimed shows as Vincent, with Leonard Nimoy, Grandma Moses — An American Primitive, with Cloris Leachman, and he collaborated with John Astin in the creation and original production of Once Upon A Midnight.
For five years, Dennis served as President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of Christmas Carol, Inc., which produced Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in theaters across America, with stars such as Wilford Brimley and John Astin in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge.
Since 1996, Dennis has produced Triple Espresso in 50 plus cities in the United States and six foreign countries and has overseen the translation and production of the show in German and Flemish, during this time also developing That Wonder Boy and most recently, To Begin With.
In 2012, as part of the Dickens Bicentenary, he was invited to Buckingham Palace to meet Her Majesty the Queen of England and the Duke of Edinburgh.
Dennis has completed 28 marathons, on six of the seven continents, and served on the Board of Directors of the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon. For seven years he served as Chairman of the Board of Media Fellowship International, Inc., a Christian ministry that serves professionals in the media and entertainment industries. He lives in Minneapolis.