Sing Tank Live - NAMT Festival Alumni Spring 2020

Hello, I am Pamela Winslow Kashani.

And I am Tim Kashani.

And together, along with our Apples and Oranges team, we like to welcome you to Sing Tank. And this Sing Tank is different than any other Sing Tank we've ever done. Apples and Oranges, in partnership with the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, are going to bring you 4 teams who will pitch their wonderful original musicals to friendly sharks from the theatre industry and the investment world. It's all done with a sense of fun and support, but this time we are adding 2 special prizes for the teams. More about that later. Each of the 4 teams are not only NAMT Festival participants, but they are alums of Theatre Accelerator. Apples and Oranges' 2-week virtual program, which coaches creative teams using Silicon Valley principles to help them become not just thriving creatives, but thriving creative entrepreneurs so that they can take the starving out of artist.

And now I'd like to introduce 2 friends that have been partners on this particular theater accelerator. That is Sierra Iverson and Kyle Wright. We, in, in designing this, wanted to find a way to unify the work that we've been doing across multiple programs to create a theater accelerator that felt very NAMT and Kyle-related. So Sierra, why don't you take the floor first, please?

Thank you, Tim. My name is Sierra. I'm the New Works Director at the National Alliance for Musical Theater. We are a nonprofit service organization for the musical theater community with a mission to be a catalyst for nurturing musical theater development. Production, innovation, and collaboration. We've been so grateful to you, Tim, and Apples and Oranges, who have shared your expertise with our musical theatre community through both this program and through the course Digitizing the Fourth Wall, which Tim will mention. Our annual Festival of New Musicals is heading into its 32nd year, and every show you're seeing today has come through the festival. Tim generously offered to run a cohort of his Theatre Accelerator for our group, So we put out a call to our entire community, and these 4 shows answered the call. They've done great work over the last few weeks, and I'm excited to see the presentations. So thanks again, Tim, Apples and Oranges Arts, Broadway Tech Accelerator, Kyle Wright, and the Shubert Organization for helping us forge ahead in this virtual world. Enjoy the presentations.

And next up, I'd like to bring up Kyle.

Hi there, I'm Kyle Wright, uh, with the Shubert Organization, and, uh, Tim and I and Pamela work together on more projects than I thought was humanly possible, and it's very exciting. And it's been really inspiring for myself and for my colleagues at Shubert to see what's been happening over the last 2 months with our work with Apples and Oranges and NAMT, from digitizing the Fourth Wall Summit, which really was great. Both classes we engaged with had fantastic ideas and came out of those programs with kind of a new sense of excitement around programming and opportunities. and really took these opportunities to think about how they can forward their organizations and continue to provide value and engagement with their communities. And we're really completely excited about this program, and I'm excited about these teams who are all wonderful. It's great to work with them. And it's just so encouraging right now to see this great work being done and real energy being put out there and positive messages and story in a variety of formats. And in the format that I love the most, which is musical theater. So on behalf of myself and Shubert, we're thrilled to be a part of this and lend our support. And frankly, I just find it very entertaining because these are great, these are great artists. So I'll leave it there. I don't want any spoiler alerts, but there we are. Thanks, Tim and Pamela.

Thank you. And I couldn't agree more about the artists, and they are actually part of 13 shows that have presented to us as part of the class themselves. And one of the aspects that brought us all together was something that we don't necessarily need to remind ourselves what's happening, but we should at least call it out and know that a few months ago when we were talking about Theater Accelerator, Broadway was thriving and everything hit and this is what our streets look like. And rather than sitting around and waiting for a solution, the three of us got together and said, well, what, what can we do to help? And right away we jumped on and we put together just a simple webinar for a number of theaters around the globe to look at what are just some of these digital options. And from there, we then ran this course that both Sierra and Kyle were alluding to called Digitizing the Fourth Wall, where a number of our judges today went through that course. And we looked at, well, what if live does not happen in 2020? How do we stay as an art form? We definitely want live to come back, but we also wanted to create a viable ecosystem. And through this, we then did YouTube series, we did concerts, we did a number of different things which led us to this class of Theatre Accelerator, which is our Class 9. And we've run Theatre Accelerator in its traditional virtual version since Class 1. Therefore, virtual didn't throw us when it came to Theatre Accelerator. And the extension was to bring in an additional 4 shows from NAMT. If you want to see the other 9 shows, go watch the recording on YouTube. They did their Sing Tank last week, and now they get to relax and watch everybody else go. And virtual has been part of our DNA, as mentioned, for the last couple years. We're doing digital versions of films. We are creating immersive experiences in XR. We are also looking at the entire developmental process. And that's what's unique about the Theater Accelerator today, is one of these teams is going to win that virtual development process.

And if you would like us to continue our work and help others, you can help us out by subscribing to our YouTube channel. And that's very simple, just go down below and press that button, subscribe. It will help All these artists on this call today amplify their message, as well as the countless hundreds of other artists that have come through Theater Accelerator and our other programs. So please do subscribe, or please go to our website if you would like to donate, nycoc.org.

All right, so let's get to what's gonna happen today. We have the 4 shows that you saw in the little prequel video, and they are going to be presenting in 5-minute increments. After they are given their 5 minutes, then the judges will come on for 5 minutes of Q&A. After all 4 shows go, we will bring up the judges one more time for a last Q&A. Each judge will get one virtual dollar. They are allowed to invest that virtual dollar in any way they see fit. They can lay it all down on one show, they can divide it up. They just have to be able to do the math where they can divide by 4. We will tabulate all of that result, and that will give the winner to this one that's going to get the, the virtual reading.

The math's a lot easier than if we had 13 teams on today. That would be a little more challenging. But also, we're adding another fun feature today that we've never done before. We are going to have an audience choice award, so those of you who are participating and watching, please make your vote through the chat, and we'll let you know when that the voting is open, and the winner will receive bragging rights and maybe something else. We'll see.

All right, well, I think that's enough of the how it works. Let's jump right into some of our key friends that are helping us out right here, and let's please, let's meet our judges.

Yes, and without further ado, I'd like to introduce our first judge, Deborah Barrera, a dear friend and colleague of ours. She is the founder of Fire Muse Productions, has co-produced and received many Tony Awards and nominations for numerous Broadway shows, including Hamilton, Ain't Too Proud, and An American in Paris, which we worked on together. She is an esteemed advisor for development at Apples and Oranges. Deborah, welcome.

Hello, Deborah. Next up, we have Elise Dewsberry. And Elise Dewsberry is— a true Renaissance person who's actor, singer, director, and worked with us as a dramaturg on some of our shows. Currently the Artistic Director of The New Musicals Inc. in LA, and author and evaluator of The Book Lab and The Outlining Lab. Hello, Elise! Hi, nice to be here. Great to have you.

Next we have Kathy Evans. She is the Founding Executive Director of the Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, which has helped Over 150 writers develop their musicals and get them produced in incredible places all over the country and the world. She is a former 9-year executive director of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre. Welcome, Kathy!

Hi, great to be here with these great artists.

And great to hear all the stuff you're doing virtually too, Kathy.

Thanks, Tim, and a lot of that is because of that great class you gave us.

Oh, thank you very much. Well, we're all working on this together. We've got Brynn. We— next up, Donalyn Hilton, who is a friend, producer, and creative force behind the Goodspeed Musical since 1988. She guides the Festivals of New Musicals and the Johnny Mercer Writers Colony and a past president of NAMT. So all hail to Donna.

Oh, thank you, thank you. Hi everybody, it's great to be here. I can't wait to hear some great musical theater this afternoon.

And that indeed you will, Donna. Thank you for joining us. Next we have Brandon Ivey. He is the Associate Artistic Director of the Village Theatre, which is near Seattle, Washington, where he has directed world premieres of countless plays and has assisted Broadway shows like Next to Normal and First Date. Welcome, Brandon.

Everyone, happy to be here.

Happy to have you, Brandon. And now we have our birthday boy, Frank Kavanaugh, who is celebrating a birthday today and has joined us here at Sing Tank because he has never missed one of these. And Frank and Jonathan, who we meet in a second, are both back to the very, very first Sing Tank. And we, we will sing a, all a virtual happy birthday to Frank on this.

Frank and I, I guess I have to make my camera work, but yeah, I'll skip the birthday. But thank you. I've known Tim since he was like 7, even though he was in college with me. So it's very sad. Um, and really appreciate it. Look forward to this. This is a really great process. I'm excited for all the people who are in it and You know, what's great is to be the least talented person in a group of talented people. So that's, that's my birthday blessing. Thank you.

Well, thank you, Frank. And Frank comes to us as one of our investors who self-proclaimed is not— does not write musicals, but invests in them.

And next up, we have another friend and colleague that has been with us for almost all the Sing Tanks, maybe all of them, Jonathan. I'm not sure. Wow, you got a 100% streak going here, Jonathan. Jonathan Leddin began his career as a stage manager, and he did a complete 180 to become Chief Operating Officer of Citadel Global Equities for over a decade. And so his right brain and his left brain are very, very healthy. And he now serves as President of the Board for the Orlando Ballet, and he happens to be our Florida neighbor as well. Welcome, Jonathan Leddin.

Thank you.

Good to see you.

Frank, I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna contest you on the least talented. We'll have a sing-off here at the end.

Both of these people are selling themselves short. I will say that for sure.

Maybe we could just have you sing Happy Birthday to Frank and we can just—

No, I'm good.

That's okay. Sounds good. All right, Brian Morland, you are up. Brian, a Broadway producer and a mentor with us on Broadway Tech Accelerator, as well as the New York City-based creative producer whose credits include The Lifespan of a Fact, Sea Wall: A Life, and the upcoming American Buffalo with Sam Rockwell and Blu, directed by Felicia Rashad. And Brian also was a judge for the preceding 9 shows.

Yes! Welcome. I cannot wait to see these musicals. Good luck to all of you.

Thank you, Brian. It's always great to have you with us. You're, you're a driving force. You've got such positive energy.

I love it.

Oh, thank you so much.

Next up we have Meredith Reed. She is the Director of Marketing and Events at Music Theatre Works in Chicago, and she is the former Marketing Manager at Theatre Aspen and President's Club Membership Manager at Durham Performing Arts Center. She is also a vocalist and knows about vocal, about music management as well. A very esteemed colleague, please welcome Meredith Reed.

Hi, thank you for having me.

Thank you for attending, and thank you for digitizing with us.

Absolutely, anytime.

And last and certainly not least, James Rocco, our actor, director, producer extraordinaire, uh, associate producer at the Fifth Avenue in Seattle and producing artistic director at the Ordway in St. Paul in past incarnations, and has directed over 200 productions globally, including The Wizard of Oz at Madison Square Garden, which I saw, by the way, and had a close friend in, which we will talk about later, and also co-founder of Thirty Saints Productions. James, welcome!

Hello!

Excited to be here for everyone and anxious to see the shows.

Thank you, James.

We are too, and that's a perfect segue. We've met all of our judges now, and now it's time for the real fun stuff. We get to meet our teams and see their presentations. So without further ado, we're going to bring up our first team. We have Harris Duran, Jason Shafer, and Arthur Bacon with Bleeding Love.

Hey, I'm Harris Duran, the lyricist.

I'm Arthur LaFrance Bacon, the composer. I'm Jason Shafer, the book writer.

And this is Bleeding Love.

In a world where it's too dangerous to go outside, a starry-eyed teen cellist risks leaving her apartment to win the love of the rebel punk next door.

—ashes, hope burns to ashes, and the sun didn't rise again. Our God is risen, we've been forgotten, and the sun didn't rise again.

Bleeding Love was suggested by Oscar Wilde's short story "The Nightingale and the Rose," and our show has been developed at many places over time.

Outlaws, hooligans, and wild drug fiends, that's what's stalking those avenues. Outlaws, hooligans, and wild drug fiends, they'll rape you, then they'll kill you, then they'll take your shoes.

We had our world premiere at the Fredericia Theatre in Denmark, which is where all the beautiful footage you're watching is from. We got amazing reviews, and our show has grown in relevance over time with it dealing with climate change, gun violence, and hope resisting against the darkness. And oddly enough, it's about a world where it's too dangerous to go outside, so everyone is cloistered in their apartments. Mm-hmm. And because of the style of the show, it organically lent itself to becoming a radio play. And so we used our demos for the songs and had the actors record the dialogue in their homes and launched it over the last month as a fully produced audio musical through the Broadway Podcast Network. Since releasing last month, we've gotten great press, the reviews have been stellar, and we are one of the top performing arts podcasts in the country. We realize the show is cross-genre storytelling, so it's able to succeed in multiple forms, like Little Shop and Beetlejuice. They both found multi-form success because of their darkly comic style. They both had live-action movies, stage musicals, as well as graphic novels, comic books, and yes, they both even had animated TV shows. Our team has a film, TV, and recording industry background, and Bleeding Love itself was originally conceived as a musical film. So while we don't know what the future holds, we do know there is a need for content. We already have proof of concept that our show can succeed in multiple forms, so using our film and TV experience, we're going to create an animated feature film or animated TV show like Spirited Away meets Nightmare Before Christmas, which can be produced while everyone is in quarantine, just like we did with the podcast. Building our audience will strengthen the show, and because it's a 6-person cast, production size is flexible, and has had extensive development, we're in a unique position to hit the ground running when the theater and film communities start up again on regional, nonprofit, and first-class productions and eventually a live-action film. We've always thought Tim Burton, Michel Gondry, or Julie Taymor would be ideal directors because their filmmaking uses animation and romantic surrealism. We believe they would be great artistic partners on an animated film as well. We have the wonderful Kent Nicholson, Katie Rosen, and Steve Saporito producing, and we are now seeking opportunities for an enhanced regional run, front money for commercial capitalization, and help getting the animated film greenlit at a studio and into production as soon as possible. So our story of hope can get out into the world at a time when it is most needed.

It's just a word. It's just a people. It's just a chance to dress in white under a steeple. Feel the summer sun. It's just a song. It's just a song.

Bleeding love.

Congratulations, and thank you for going first. Thank you. Let's have all of our judges come on screen, please. All right, who has questions for Bleeding Love?

I was going to ask, because I saw this at NAMT a few years ago and I thought I really enjoyed it, but I'm really struck by how resonant it is now, and I wondered if that makes you contemplate any changes in the show based on the world we live in now, or are you just lucky that it happens to make more sense now than ever?

So it's, it's a really weird, bizarre, uh, coincidence that it actually fits right into what's going on now. Which is why we made the podcast, which we released over the last month, because it just oddly fits in with exactly what's going on.

It's very odd. Yeah. Okay, next question.

Yeah, Kathy. Uh, yeah, that was a great presentation, by the way, but could you speak more specifically as to what you would want to do right now with this a virtual reading?

Sure, so I think with how we did the podcast, right now we're growing our audience, and so having a virtual reading will continue to grow the audience, but we'll also continue to get this out in terms of producers, right? Because that's really going to be, you know, who watches virtual readings will be, you know, either people who love theater or producers, because we're looking for once, once COVID is over, because we're developed, because we're relevant, because we're small, We want to hit the ground running and have a production, so we think it would help make that happen.

Thank you. Great. Thank you. James, then Donalyn.

Well, has there been talk of streaming the production from Denmark? It looks like you've already shot it.

It's, it's in Danish. Ah, okay. Yeah, it's beautiful though. It's beautiful.

So, uh, one of your goals is an enhanced regional production, and hi guys, it's good to see you. So I guess in this moment, you know, it is shockingly appropriate for this moment. And I think as someone who would be in a position to offer you a regional home, I immediately get concerned that it may be a little too close to the moment for my audience. How do you respond to that?

So I think while the themes align and it's certainly a piece that's about hope, hope in terms of what everyone's going through is really horrible right now. And I think what a lot of people are looking for is this piece of hope of— and Bronwyn represents like, she's like the original resistor, you know. And so she is resisting against that darkness. And I think that's something that is universal, and I think is primal for all audiences, which I think is key to any, uh, successful piece of art is this— we at our core relate to this. And, um, Yeah, so I think that it would continue to be resonant. And also it's not about COVID right? So the world is climate freezing and not climate change. So there are things that are not exactly parallel. So there's enough distance to feel like we're not just watching a documentary.

Thank you. Jonathan?

And that's the premise why they can't leave is climate change? I'm sorry, I missed the premise why they can't.

Yeah, so the world of the show is it's always night, it's always cold and nothing grows anymore. And it is some sort of climate change type world.

It's suggested though. It's not actually explicitly told in the show.

It's just, that's the world that these characters are living in. Yeah.

There's references to the climate having changed and everyone moved south to the equator. South.

I have one quick question.

Yeah, go for it. Great, great presentation, guys. Thanks. Thank you.

Thank you.

I worked on American Idiot with Tom and Ira, so I really appreciated many of the moments in the presentation. And if I missed it, I apologize, but is there a cast recording of any sort on this piece?

So, we have the demos that we did that are on the podcast, and we're about to release what's going to be songs from the podcast. It won't be a cast album, it's just going to be, this is from the podcast. Great. And so it's that same cast, Rebecca and Tony and— Yes, that's great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brandon.

Yeah, could you just speak a little bit to any of the artistic development that you are interested in doing during this time, or is this specifically seeking out producers and enhancement?

So at this time we're seeking out producers and enhancements. It's— we've developed the show, we were in NAMT in 2012, so it's been 8 years of development. And, um, you know, we of course are open to continuing to develop it as needed, obviously, but, um, but at this point we're ready to, to move forward.

You don't want another 8 years of development? All right, Pamela, that takes us to our 5-minute mark.

Fantastic. Well, thank you all the judges. We can— we'll see you back shortly. And thank you, Bleeding Love, for your great presentation. We have our next, next presentation up. Let us meet Kevin Merritt and Kevin Soh and Great Wall.

Thank you, Pam— Pamela. My name is Kevin Merritt. I am the book writer of Great Wall, a musical with music and lyrics by Kevin So and story consulting by David Henry Hwang. And Great Wall was based on a concept album, or is based on a concept album written by Kevin So. So I'm going to let him tell you about that.

Kevin So here. Hi. How did Great Wall start? Great Wall began way back in 2000 when I started recording this double CD, which was Leaving the Lights On: A Day in the Life of Victor Wu.

Here it is, time to give yourself a little flashback. September 19th, 1999. 1982, bell bottoms on their way out, disco getting played out, summer over, can't stay out, gotta follow all the rules.

Victor Wu was this character I created basically about my own life and my own childhood. You know, my father, like a lot of traditional Chinese-American families, my father was the lenient one and my mother was the disciplinarian. There's a song called "Streets of Chinatown" where my father is kind of barking back at my mother. <LYRICS>—can't keep me away from Chinatown.

It's a big part of who I am. I was raised on the streets of Chinatown. It's the only place I understand.</LYRICS> Sometimes it was about me.

And pursuing my own dream, my mother would say things like, "You can't sing, you'll never make it." You know, "What are you wasting your time?" Maybe there's something different.

Maybe it's meant to be.

The theme of the album was more about, you know, to know where you're going, you must remember where you come from. From. Very much inspired by The Who's Quadrophenia and Springsteen's Born to Run. I was also listening to a lot of hip-hop, Tupac Shakur. I've been thinking a lot about musicals in general and taking my songwriting to a different kind of spectrum, and voilà, you know, the musical was born. You know, I'll let Kevin take it from there.

Thank you, Kevin. Great Wall was part of the NAMT Festival and had a number of other development readings and productions, but recently Kevin and I have gotten really excited about exploring a new format for our show, and we would like to turn Great Wall into an episodic podcast series. We imagine it to be a little bit like Fresh Off the Boat meets Crazy Ex-Girlfriend meets This American Life, sort of. Why episodic? Well, Kevin's music really lends itself nicely to short vignettes, and having the opportunity to use each episode to tell an encapsulated theme story around one or two songs really, really excites us. It allows us to dig deeper into stories and characters that the stage musical just doesn't have time to do. And the characters are great. There's a workaholic father, Stanley, a starry-eyed son, Kevin, a fantasy alter ego, Victor, controlling mother, Grace. If you have a family, you can relate to this one. And there's some characters like old friend and love interest Michelle, the best friend Henry, arrogant, ignorant record execs, and more. The story is framed through the eyes of a young musician absorbed in the MTV-driven pop culture of the '80s and '90s. And yet, as an Asian American, he's attempting to shadow stereotypes both in the music industry but also in his own family. The themes are relevant and universal: the sacrificing pursuit of the American dream, honoring family versus self, the influence of media on childhood, our disparate definitions of success, and how we're defined by our race, culture, and family. Why a podcast? A podcast is doable now, and with proper investment, we can have episodes to release by the end of the year and start growing our community. The podcast can eventually become a cast album to further promote the IP, and eventually, we hope the audience we can build with the podcast will help us shop the show further as a television series, a film possibly, or even a stage show. And of course, a podcast is much cheaper to produce than a TV series, so it's a great way to mitigate the initial risk while developing the content in that way. We're asking for a financial partner who can raise the capital to record this well. We are not concerned about the production. I have owned my own production company in New York City for over 10 years and directed and produced podcasts and other recordings. Kevin So has been a professional musician his entire life and is very comfortable in the recording studio. We know all the right people. To get involved. We just need to pay them. Kevin and I have always believed Great Wall had opportunities beyond the stage. We are very excited about exploring a new format to tell our musical story. Thanks.

And thank you very much, Kevin. Let's get our judges back, please. All right, Q&A time. Donalynne.

Hi, hi Kevin, it's good to see you. Yes, I've had the pleasure of attending a couple of readings of this piece over the years and I love it. I've always found it to have so much heart, and so I'm glad to know that you're still at it. I love the idea of an episodic podcast series My question is, as it stands right now, what, what, what obstacles to its existing structure or style do you see? You pointed out all the reasons it will work well. What obstacles do you guys think you'll encounter other than, of course, the financing of it?

Well, I think the challenge in building an episodic series is to make each episode its own story. So it has to have its own arc, but also delivering the arc sort of of a season. So if we conceived it as like a 10-season arc, arc. We want to think about both the arc of the season and the stories. And when we were writing the musical, you know, we were thinking of sort of the arc of the show, a 2-act show, a 1-act show, depending on what it would be. So I think the challenge for us is going to be to go back and really make sure that each of these individual stories— so let's say we took the musical as it stands now and we pulled just scenes and make them their own story. Well, they really have to work as an episode not just as like a scene in a play. So I think it's doable and I'm kind of excited for that because I think it will allow us to explore options with those scenes that we couldn't with the musical because it just, we don't have time or we can't get down a side tangent. But in terms of the challenge, I think it's an exciting challenge, but that's the challenge to make sure that each episode in itself as a self-encapsulated unit is engaging.

Thank you. Great. Next question.

Jonathan. So in the episodic podcast, you're thinking it's a— is it like a 30-minute installment, did you say, or 20 minutes?

Yeah, I would say between 20 and 30 minutes. So what, what I was imagining is it's 1 to 2 songs. Uh, Kevin's songs are very thematic, so there's like a lot of songs, um, that we had in our original productions that all reflect back on his childhood when he was 12 and this character that he created. And so, I think we could even take one song and build the whole episode around that. There might be opportunities to do two songs, but I'm thinking 20 to 30 minute episodes.

Do you think, when you think of, like you mentioned Fresh Off the Boat and things like that, do you think you wear out the premise over the course of a podcast and kill your optionality for further production?

Um, well, yeah, I think there's a— I think there's enough there for sure. Um, you know, I mean, I guess you could sort of say that about any TV series, um, and it's amazing how long they can go. But I, I think there's so much to explore here, both because we're jumping time, we're jumping current day, um, also back to the, the, uh, the '80s and '90s, and there's so much of that nostalgic stuff to play with. And even juxtaposing the record business of the '80s and '90s and the MTV generation, which I grew up on, which sort of had this media in our face all the time, to where we are now, which is a much different world. And there's, frankly, some of these stereotypes have been shattered, and some of, we have seen success in places that just weren't possible in the '80s. So I think that time period will just give us a ton to play with. And a lot of stories. This— it's also actually, you can't see it from the presentation, but it's a multiracial story. So there's characters related to Kevin's life that are of other— that aren't Asian American, but also he can really relate to in terms of immigrant stories and minority stories. So there's just a lot, I think, to mine with that. So I'm not concerned about material. Plus, Kevin's catalog of songs, even if he didn't write anything new today, I mean, we could go on for a long, long time.

Okay, good. Yeah, James.

So if you were to move on to the next step, what would you be presenting to us? Would you be presenting some of what you plan to do in the podcast, in the episodes?

Yeah, I think my, my dream, if we were to get that, would be to take, uh, I don't know how much time we get in this development, but to take 2 or 3 episodes and really, uh, sort of related to what Donna asked, take them and build them into these these episodes to make sure that they work in that, in that way, in the very encapsulated way. So that would be— and then obviously if it does, so in our development workshop, that's what we do. And then I say we'd want to go straight into recording the podcast from there. So it would give us a chance to just try out the format. I think the story is there, but, you know, it's— and the songs I know are there. It's just trying out that format. And so that would be a great opportunity for us.

All right, that's, that's it, Pamela.

Thank you all. Thank you. Great questions, and, and thank you very much, Kevin. We're going to move on to our next project. We have Jesse Gage, who is going to tell us all about Simon and Jorge Pay Their Student Loans.

Hey, thank you, Pamela and Tim. I'm Jesse, and, uh, this is my show.

In life, we face many difficult, seemingly unanswerable questions.

Why are we here?

How does Wi-Fi work? And why has no one ever written a stoner bromance rock musical about the impending student loan crisis and ever-widening income inequality gap? We'll ask Ask no more, for I give you Simon and Jorge Pay Their Student Loans, a new musical adventure written by me, Jesse Gage, about two BFFs and what happens when the American dream becomes the American nightmare.

Hello, have you two given any thought to your plans for after high school?

Yeah, I'm gonna be a super famous DJ, you know, and I'm gonna make the world a better place.

Well, guess Guess what? What? Cardell University offers majors in both DJing and making the world a better place. Woohoo!

Let's go to college! And so, 7 years later—

Music graduation! Rockin' the higher education!

But the celebration doesn't last long, for Simon and Jorge soon find themselves working as baristas, with their wages garnished for failing to pay their student loans. Our dynamic duo soon turns despondent, which is when Jorge's mother Rosalita steps in to offer some motherly advice.

Your life is a sandwich, a stock between two slices of bread. The bottom slice, you're born, and the top slice is when you're dead. Why be soggy and sad on the gas station shelf when you can wake up feeling glad that you made your So that you include the kind of food to be the dude that you would wish. Life is a sandwich.

And so, feeling inspired, Simon convinces Jorge to go on a series of ill-advised and increasingly dangerous money-making endeavors, beginning with manufacturing crystal meth for the Russian mob and ending with selling their kidneys to Dr. Bob's medical office. But just as Dr. Bob is about to plunge in the scalpel, Jorge and his coworker Amy finally reveal their true feelings for each other.

I would be sad if you— I would be sad if you— I would be sad if you were dead.

Simon is left alone on the operating table and the bromance in tatters. But when Jorge discovers Simon's in a coma and that his kidney has been misappropriated by a secret underground society of super rich people, he's finally had enough.

I cannot go on with the way things are. This time they've gone way too far. I'm gonna make things right the way they should be. Should have been. It is time for the losers to win.

After which they recover Simon's kidney, pay off their student loans, and finally bring some much-needed justice to this world.

Let's let the world know, the world, it is over.

Now, a little bit about me and the show. In my previous life, I was a practicing attorney specializing in professional liability defense litigation, a singer-songwriter with credits including Google, Fox, Invicta Watches, and a bevy of Brazilian soap operas. And I'm also a dad. About the show, it received its first performance at this past year's NAMT New Musicals Festival, where it was a resounding success. It was performed with a cast of 10 and a band of 3, but could easily be expanded to accommodate a cast of 20 and a band of 6. What are we looking for? A production company interested in creating an animated or live-action version of the show, or to sell the property to content providers such as Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. And lastly, investors to enhance an eventual theatrical run at a regional or off-Broadway theater. And finally, and most importantly, who is this piece for? Our early adopters would be college students and recent grads likely to be attracted to a screen-based version of the show and its content, who in turn would generate the momentum needed to launch a theatrical run and lead us to musical theater fans of comedies such as Little Shop of Horrors, Rock of Ages, and Book of Mormon, but in our case with an even broader appeal as student loans are arguably a more universal issue than Mormons and man-eating plants. In fact, of the nearly $1.5 trillion in student debt, nearly 55% is held by people above 30 and nearly 10% by those above 60, all key demographics that can support a successful theatrical run and provide me the financial resources to finally pay off my student loans. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Jesse. Let's, let's bring up our judges and see if we can start etching away at that student loan.

I go, uh, Brian, then Brandon. Well done, absolutely well done. I love that this show can scale up, it can scale down. Um, actually, can the show scale down? You had 10 at NAMM with the 3-piece band. Can it go the other way in cast size? Below 10?

Yeah, it would be tough. I think we've looked at that and I probably 9 to 8 maybe, but, you know, everyone at the end of the show, the narrative brings everyone together with plenty of love stories and it'd be tough to depict all the couples together if we were doubling.

Okay, Brandon.

Hey Jesse, good to see you. Good to see you. My question is, how do you see the show being presented on streaming services for Netflix or Hulu? Is it the show in its entirety? Is it a series? Is it a miniseries? Like, what exactly is the content that you see existing on Netflix, and is that different or the same as if it were to be on Broadway?

Yeah, what we're looking at right now is doing it in an episodic format. I think it could certainly run the in a full-length kind of movie format as well. But I think what really excites me is the escalating nature of the story. It kind of lends itself to these episodic cliffhangers. So I think it'd be a lot of fun to, you know, have probably, I would say, 6 to 7 15 to 20 minute episodes, probably 2 to 3 songs in each episode. And it ends with the latest dire circumstances and mishaps. And, you know, tune into the next one to see how things will get worse before they get better. So I think episodic would be our— yeah, is where we're looking at initially.

Great. All right, next question. We have Elise.

I was going to ask, since you were at NAMT last year, and by the way, I thought your presentation really captured the style of your humor, which was the thing I remember the most from the NAMT presentation. But have you had any developmental opportunities or partners since that moment, since last October?

Yeah, since NAMT, I have the— it was optioned by lead producer, and we did a table read back when that was possible, back in January. And that was the— that was pretty much the only step that's been taken thus far, as far as— except for some rewrites on my end. Which is why a great, you know, a virtual read would be a great opportunity to further develop the full-length narrative because it's nothing better than hearing it out loud and getting a chance to work with everyone.

Okay, Donna Lynn. Hi, Jesse. When you talk about we, who are you including in that? Who are you committed to working to?

You know, I spend too much time in the room alone, so it's probably me and all my, you know, split personalities here, uh, but I'm the, the producer, uh, that's on the project as well. So obviously together we're working on these strategies. Thank you.

All right, get one more.

Looks like—

okay, we are finished then. Well, thank you, judges.

Thank you, Jesse. And now we're moving on to our last presentation of the day. We have David Darrow joining us with The Passage.

Hi everybody, I'm David and, uh, this is The Passage.

David, we're not getting any audio.

Oh, sorry about that. Let me try that again. No problem.

The passage is about a young boy named Albert. Albert comes home from school one day to find a monster living in his basement. The tiled floor, the knocker on the door, he knew it well. The monster has kidnapped Albert's father. The creaky stair, the wicker kitchen chairs, they In order to save him, Albert must take a terrible journey. The broken mirror that for years his mother swore would bring some evil spell. And this story is true, Albert knew it well.

Everything was normal, everything was normal.

I wrote the passage as a love letter to my parents, but I'll get back to that later. Our hero Albert and his friend Cassie are 12 years old. Albert is obsessed with Neil Gaiman's The Sandman graphic novels, and Cassie knows pretty much everything in the world. They're curious and intrepid, sort of like these guys. In fact, I heard an audience member describe the passage once as if Wes Anderson had directed a musical of The Goonies. I thought it was pretty accurate, and a good thing considering all this '80s 80s nostalgia going on. And just as with The Goonies or Stranger Things, the world is full of magic and terrible danger. You've read enough to know there's magic in the attic. You're old enough to see there are creatures in the sink. You've been around the block, and that creepy ancient portrait by the grandfather clock, will you swear you've seen it blink? So terrible noises are coming from Albert's basement, his father hasn't been seen in weeks, and his mother keeps running up and down the basement steps with paper towels fighting this monster. Albert has a vision that a great warrior is coming to save his father. And so, armed with a Rubik's Cube and a mixed-breed sporting dog named Louis, Albert and Cassie, in the dark of night, journey into the basement to do the impossible: bring Albert's father back.

And the whole wide world is strange and won't be tamed, and there's a wild unknown in the walls you know and the house you've grown in.

But once downstairs, they are out of their element. They meet a terrifying old man in a pile of coats in the closet who may or may not be deaf, who leads them to the end of the line, where behind a door Albert's father waits. But the fear is too great. Neither Cassie nor Albert has the courage to open the door, until behind them, a warrior appears. Here's where I want to go back and talk about my parents. Hey, there they are. When I was in college, my dad died of cancer. I spent the last 2 months of his life in our childhood home with my mom while she cared for him while he died. It was the greatest act of heroism I've ever And so Albert sees fully what is happening in the basement. His father's illness, his mother's heroism in caring for him. And he makes a decision. That saving his father might not mean exactly what he thought it meant. And that death might not actually be the scariest thing in the world. He has a conversation with his father for the first time in a while. He says goodbye and lets his father go, and peacefully, mercifully, His father dies. It's a little sad, but mostly it's a relief, the way it was for us. There's also a lot of joy and laughter in this play. It's really funny. We don't talk about cancer until about 5 minutes before the end of the play. We only mention it once, and I did that intentionally because I didn't want the audience bringing in thoughts that this show was really sad or all about death.

This show is about being a child.

And trying to understand the unimaginable. And really, looking cancer in the eye, whether you're a kid or an adult, feels the same. So why do we need The Passage right now? Well, I think we need stories about the heroism of caregivers, about what it means to really love another person. And I think we need stories that help us understand death. I think we have a weird relationship with death in this country. We don't like to talk about it. And I can't think of a better time in American history for a story about a totally normal, completely joyful family going through the unimaginable. I think our target audience includes anyone who was born or grew up in the '80s on great adventure stories like The Goonies. I also think the passage speaks specifically to anyone who's dealt with cancer or terminal illness, or lost a parent. While there are two children at the center of this story, The Passage doesn't condescend. It's appropriate for children, but it's written for adults. I've always thought The Passage would make an excellent animated film, something stop-motion like Kubo and the Two Strings. And so in these uncertain times, when we're unsure when we're going to be gathered in theaters again, I'm adapting The Passage to be a screenplay to be turned into an animated movie. I'm actively looking for producers to help with this and to partner with an animation studio. I'd also love a producer's help in creating a virtual reading of the passage with a full cast. I'm excited for the future of the passage. I think it has the power to move and delight audiences both on stage and on screen.

<LYRICS>When you stare at the sky out the window, are there shapes that you cannot define?</LYRICS> Do you dream of a life brave and uncommon, full of colors burning bright? Is there magic? Oh, there's magic. Different magic.

Thank you so much for watching this video.

I hope the passage resonates with you.

Bye.

Very nicely done. Thank you, David. Everybody, and hi judges, you're back. Let's open it up for some questions, please. Deborah, you're up.

Thank you, David. That, that was amazing. You, you got me again. Thanks. And just practically, I, I think your piece really has a lot of potential and resonance right now, particularly from the point of view of kids. I completely agree with you that, you know, kids trying to understand what's going on in the world right now from the lens, from their lens. So I really appreciate that you're, you're bringing that piece of the story in. My question is, do you have any part— I know your present— your presentation is on your own, you've done the work on your own. Do you have any collaborators that you're wanting to work with or looking to work with, particularly on that animation track?

Yeah, I, yeah, so I have a— there's a producer who's attached to the show, um, who I, uh, met while working on the NAMT Festival a couple of years ago, um, and, uh, a director also who we've worked with, um, before, uh, and but I've not reached out to any animation studios. It's been like my childhood dream to work in any capacity, even as a janitor for Pixar, so I would sell a kidney, Simon and Jorge style, to make that happen, but no, I've not reached out specifically.

Great, thank you. Great work, great presentation, thank you.

Brian, then Kathy.

This is absolutely wonderful. I was taken with the story immediately from the title of the show, to call it The Passage. Metaphorically speaking, there are so many things that come to mind when you hear the word passage. It's just— that was wonderful. Okay, what do you see happening in terms of your— I know you want to go to animation route, but you had your development at N.A.P.T. and you had it again at the Guthrie. What changed for you between the two steps, and then what else do you think you want to change for your musical?

Yeah, so I've always thought the show would make a good animated movie. I just think animation and music often do similar work in terms of the sort of lifting of the narrative or elevating the world a little bit. And so I don't think it would probably be a musical in the animated version. It would be kind of a different project. For the musical, we were at Village last year in a developmental production and we learned a lot about how the ensemble sort of functions. The ensemble creates most of the play. The main characters don't really sing almost until the very end of the show. All the music is these 4 actors. We got this really great piece of advice that they should be more specific inside of Albert's world. That's a lot of what I've been working on and that's never been in front of an audience. Before. So I'd really like to try that out in some way in front of people, even if that's digitally, or going to be an animated movie or to stay in a theater piece.

All right, Kathy, you are next.

I want to say that was a fantastic presentation, and I especially love the way the music came through. I thought it was very artfully done. I'm gonna follow up on what you said earlier. You said you don't think the animated version would have music?

Well, I just think it would function differently. I would be wary that it would sort of be a hat on a hat. I think that music is such a powerful emotional tool. And I think that animation also is a really powerful emotional tool. We can do things with animation that obviously we can't do in real life. And so I would— I'd be wary about it being too saccharine. I think it's a story that could easily let go that way, and I'm so wary of that.

Well, I just— one other follow-up then is what exactly would you do if you got this virtual reading?

Well, I think the virtual reading right now, the virtual reading would be to develop the theater piece. The animated film script I think is something I'd like to partner with a producer, talk to a producer about how to do that. I've never done that before, and so the developmental reading would be to figure out these new additions to the theatrical script, and we would work on animation after.

Thank you. Yeah. Okay, next question.

I don't specifically have a question. I would say it also got to me, and I am heartless, as my colleagues will tell you. So I thought it was a great story, and, you know, I do relate to it as having an ill parent, as well as just the broad base appeal of it. But I would rethink, you know, I do think you should rethink that animated musical route, because I do think you could do it without it being saccharine. I do think your extendability into child therapies, patient therapies, towards terminal illness therapies into the healthcare industry, in terms of characters, richness of characters, and the brand is something that would all— that you could also see coming off the back of this. So I just— the reach is great in all those things. So, so well done. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Jonathan, for your insight there. I, I tend to echo that as well. Um, and thank you, judges. Okay, that's the last time I'm going to comment on anything. Today. It's not my place, but thank you, judges, and thank you, David. We're going to now turn it over to Nellie Beavers of our Apples and Oranges team. She's going to tell us a little bit about our Audience Choice Award.

Nellie, you're muted.

While Nellie's working that, I can chime in and say that we are going to do through the chat, we are going to— just let me know when you're on, Nellie.

I think I'm on. I can't tell on my end.

I'm not—

you're back.

Okay, I had my headphones and I think it was canceling them out. So we've had a very active chat. We have about 50 people watching on YouTube right now and they've been asking questions, and I'm going to actually relay one question for once we're done with this. But I want to talk about the chat and getting your audience choice votes in the chat. In just a few seconds, I'm going to open up the chat. You're going to get a little thing that says voting is open. We'll keep it open for a couple of minutes, and then we'll close it, and you'll get another thing that says voting is closed. I'd ask that only one vote per account. 'cause I'm gonna be tallying it myself. And go ahead in just a few seconds and open it up. There was one question that I'll leave to you all that was from David, and he asked, how do podcasts help the development of— 'cause a couple of teams had podcasts in their thoughts, and how does that monetize or does it monetize? I thought that was an interesting question that other people might wanna know the answer to. With that, I'm gonna get this chat started and get those votes going.

Great, and a number of you that are watching this on Broadway World, if you want to vote, you'll have to go through and take a look at the Apples and Oranges YouTube site if you wanna cast your vote. So we've got some time going for that now. And while we have the Audience Choice Award going back on, then we want to now bring back up our judges who have now another 5 minutes to ask any questions of all the teams. So let's get all of our teams, all of our judges back up on screen, please.

And I'd like to just remind everybody of the 4 wonderful shows that we have seen: Bleeding Love, Great Wall, Simon and Jorge Pay Their Student Loans, and The Passage. So we're gonna open it up for any final questions or comments before you tally your dollar. Frank. And then, Deborah, thank you.

Sure. So first and foremost, I guess the only analog I can give you is I feel like I've been watching high school football for 9 series, and then somehow I got invited to an NFL game. So just outstanding, everybody's presentations and what's gone on. We've seen a lot of really interesting stories and things, but I think presentation-wise, what we just saw was at least for me, transcendent from, you know, where we've been before and some of these types of things. Um, question for Great Wall. Yeah, can you summarize again kind of how, how you would approach it? So if, if you did this, you would take a reading and kind of what are you looking for? Uh, and then the same question for Juan. Uh, I mean, for the, uh, kind of— it's the episodic stuff I'm trying to get to.

Uh, sure, I can answer for Great Wall. Uh, we would, we would use the reading to develop the scripts for the episodes. I'd love to see if we could get 3 of them. I don't know how much time we'd get with this reading, but if we could develop 3 of the encapsulated episodes to really rework— we have a lot of content already because we have a full stage show, so I think we'd want to break that out into these episodes and really design it as an episode structure. So that's what I would use the readings for, so that we could come out of that with really clear podcast scripts for the first, you know, at least first 3 episodes, and be able to just go immediately into production. Like, as I said in the presentation, our goal—

Kevin, because we don't have a lot of time. Okay, so we're gonna go to our next question, and that was, I think it was, I— yeah, it was Deborah. It was Deborah. Sorry, Deborah, then Jonathan.

Well, Frank asked a question that kind of— I'm gonna, as quickly as possible, each team one sentence, and Great Wall just did it, one thing that you want out of the process if you are chosen, if your project is chosen. And great job, by the way, from everybody. Just one sentence from each team.

Excellent. Let's go in reverse order. How's that sound?

Sure. So let's ask David of The Passage.

Sure. I want to refocus and specify the identity of my ensemble and how they interact with Albert's world.

Excellent. And Jesse with Simon and Jorge?

Yeah, for purposes of the virtual reading, I'm assuming, uh, it would be to develop, uh, the, the full-length narrative and hear it out loud working with actors and producers.

Wonderful. And Kevin, we've already heard from. Yes. And so we're going to move on to Bleeding Love.

Uh, it would be to get it out into the world and, and gain theater admirers and producers. Got it. Wonderful.

Jonathan, you had a question for us.

So on Simon and Jorge, how much do you balance the story about their own irresponsibility, to be blunt? Because my concern is, my concern is whenever I hear, you know, income disparity, let's make fun of evil rich people. I'm saying, okay, we just alienated half the audience from a commercial standpoint. And also people with a lot of student debt don't tend to buy a lot of tickets. So in terms of the nichiness, how much do you sort of make the story more universal? You get—

Yeah, well, that's part of their character's arc. I mean, the setup to this story is clearly that they're still in high school when they're approached by— and the college that's involved is the largest chain of for-profit colleges in the United States. So it's immediately set up as is kind of, you know, an institution that's already a bit suspect. And then the arc of these characters is part of that, is partially growing up and realizing what it means to make your way in the world and leave behind some of your childish ways.

Okay, and the question that came from the chat, for those of you that are thinking, I'll get to you right next, Brian. The questions that— I saw that okay boomer come up from—

Frank, thank you for that.

I was born in 1965, so I'm Gen X.

For the ones of you that want a podcast, let's— we have that from the chat. One sentence, those of you that had a podcast, how do you monetize that?

Well, I can answer that. Podcasts right now are really being used as development platforms you know, you can look at cereal, you can look at home, a lot of them are going into other places. So I think, yes, if you get a big enough audience, you can get ad revenue, but the real way is to monetize the IP further. And so that's, that's our goal.

Got it. Great answer. Anybody else? Okay, so we had Brian, then we go Donalyn, then Brandon. Okay, so Brian, you're up.

Hi, well done everyone. My question is for Great Wall, back to you, Kevin, again. You mentioned earlier that people, um, with the stories they were going to have, they might expand in the episodes to cover some other ethnicities. And will those ethnicities start to venture into their stories as well, or are they only friends of the main family?

Well, you know, it's, it's great. It's sort of like the Frasier-Cheers question. I mean, maybe they could venture into their own world, but I think I think one example is, is one of the record execs in our story really is sort of the minority in this, in this very otherwise very white team of record execs. And he befriends Victor, and there's some sort of interaction there that really is interesting to be explored of kind of working as a minority in sort of a business that, especially back in the '80s and '90s, '60s was a very white male dominated business. And so whether or not that becomes its own tangent that, that lasts for a couple episodes, I think that's the beauty of episodic storytelling is we don't have to know right now and we could start to see, oh, this is really picking up steam. This character is really interesting. Let's follow this, this through line. So that's if that answers your question.

Yes, my question is for Kevin as well. Kevin, do you have any experience creating episodic content?

Uh, yes, yes, I do. Um, well, yeah, I, I've directed, um, uh, some episodic content, a cartoon series for CW. Um, in developing, I've written a bunch. I have to say I haven't sold anything to Netflix yet, so, but I have written, uh, 2 or 3 episodic series, uh, and a couple treatments. Um, I love the format, as you can tell.

All right, Brandon.

Uh, hi, first of all, again, all everyone The presentations were all fantastic for 4 very different shows, so kudos to everyone. My question is for the Bleeding Love team. I have never seen the show in reading or production format, but my impression of the show until this presentation here today was it was quite dark and serious, and so I was a little surprised by the hope and the the fun that seems to be in the piece. Is that new? And can you speak to, just speak to that tonal difference between a Tim Burton world and a Little Shop of Horrors, the balance of those tones?

Sure. So I think that there's a lot of overlap between Tim Burton and Little Shop. When you look at like Nightmare Before Christmas, there's a comedic overlay on it, a cartoonish overlay on both pieces. But underneath there is an emotional truth. But what happened was we met these two people, Tim and Pamela, and they pointed out that we were marketing our show in a way that didn't actually represent the correct tone of the show. And so we changed our marketing and our logo, and we changed how we were pitching it to actually accurately represent what the show is. With the pitch that we did today is the tone of the show.

Those Tim and Pamela sound like interesting people.

Yeah, I'll introduce you.

They're real nice. Yeah. All right, well, we've used up more than the 5 minutes, but those were fantastic questions, and I don't want to cut any judge short. So is there any last thing before you cast your votes, judges? I have one other thing. Sorry, one more. Yes, one last thing.

Question for the forth the passage. With your ensemble singing the bulk of your score, do you see them having movement that's based in traditional musical theater dance movement, or do you see it a little more abstract to create the rest of the world?

I would say it's action-based, if that makes any sense. I think that most of this stuff is happening kind of in real time, and so like there's a number where he goes up to the attic to find this Rubik's Cube that ends up being really central to the story, and while he's going, he's sort of interacting with his house and they, as they're singing, really create the sort of universe around him. They sort of play parts of the house. They'll play like the portrait that blinks on the wall or something like that. So I don't think it's musical theater dance, but it's not super abstract either. I think it lives somewhere in the middle. That is my answer. Thank you.

And on that note, judges, you now have your time to do the hard work that you do. Which is to figure out how you're going to divide up that virtual dollar, which takes us into our calculation time. Nellie, you've got a 30-second warning to close off the voting on your side as well. And while the judges calculate, we want to let you know that the applications are open as of today for our next class of Theater Accelerator, which will run in September, September 14th through the 25th. You can go to our website, nycoc.org, and you too can join classes from the past and have a lot of fun and change your marketing. We also, partners in crime with Kyle, we have more announcements coming from our Broadway Tech Accelerator, which is focused on moving the industry forward through technology and companies that do so. We're gonna have a summit coming up in June, July timeframe. And we wanna give a big shout out to the International Thespian Festival. Through our nonprofit, we are underwriting the festival this summer. which has gone all virtual, and we will be providing technology support as well as creative virtual support for the festival, and we wish them the best as they, like all of us, try to figure out this, this landscape.

And again, if you would like to help us in our endeavors, please feel free to subscribe to our YouTube channel or donate at our website.

And now on that note, we are going to come back and the wonderful accounting firm of Ali B. Rice will be calculating in the backend for us as we see how all of this works out.

And Nellie, I'd like to bring you up just for a second and ask you, is our voting closed with our audience poll?

Yes, our voting is closed.

And we actually have— I don't want to know the winner yet. I don't want to know the winner yet.

I have results when you're ready.

Okay, fantastic. First, let us start dividing those dollars up, and we will begin in the same order we started with our friend Deborah. Deborah, how are you going to give your dollar?

Um, so this is a hard one, I have to say. You guys are all amazing, and, um, and Tim and Pam know I do this every time. I want to give give everything to everyone, but I'm going to give 60 cents of my dollar to The Passage. I'm very attracted to this work. I think the key elements for me is based on what you've told me you want to do and my own personal attraction and passion and belief in the piece in terms of what I feel I could I can do to help move it forward, these are the reasons why I've chosen what I've chosen. So 60 cents of the dollar is going to Passage and 40 cents of my dollar is going to Bleeding Love. That's not to say that the other two pieces were any less deserving. I just feel for myself, I know that I can move those two pieces forward given what I know and what I do as best as possible.

But congratulations to everyone. Excellent response. Thank you, Deborah. That's terrific. And next we have Elise.

Hi. I would agree that this is, this is tricky. It's hard to pick something. All the shows are worthy, and I thought all the presentations were great. It comes down to, in that case, sort of taste. What, what, what do I personally really love, and what would I want to go and see? So with that in mind, I'm gonna give for 40 cents of my dollar to Bleeding Love and 30 cents of my dollar to The Passage and 15 each to Great Wall and Simon and Jorge.

But I think they're all great. Fantastic. All right, let's move on to Kathy. Yes, it's—

everyone is— was so strong. And so this is not an artistic statement at all. I really looked at the need who really can benefit from this virtual reading the most and who made the best case for that. And so I thought Simon and Jorge made the best case for it, and they also need it because they haven't yet been able to do a full reading, so they got 40 cents. I gave the passage— I just love the passage, and I— but because the animated seemed to be more important than the musical, I gave that 30 cents. And then I gave Great Wall and Bleeding Love 15 cents each only because Bleeding Love looks like it's ready to go, like it's, it's just so strong, and Great Wall, I, I wasn't convinced that a podcast is the right next move, so that's my decision.

Thank you, Kathy. I, I love the thought process going on. It's fantastic.

Yes, appreciate your feedback and appreciate you being here. And next we have Donna Lynne Hilton. Yeah, thank you for having me.

This has been so much fun to kind of take my Goodspeed development hat off this afternoon and, and look at it through my own kind of personal lens about what excited me the most was kind of the, the, um, process that I have found myself in. Um, all the projects are fabulous, um, but the, the, uh, process that was exposed this afternoon that I was most excited about was Great Wall. I love the idea of turning that show as I know it in, in the presentations I've been to and in the way that Kevin and Kevin presented it this afternoon into something episodic. I think that's a really cool idea, and if I were doing this with my own money, that's— I would give my entire dollar to Great Wall. So that's what I'm doing. Love the other shows, love the other shows, but doing something bold. I love it. I love both.

Following your gut. And usually, isn't that how theater is? It's what we feel mostly. So that's great, great choice there. And thank you, Donna. We're going to move on to Brandon Ivy.

I was thrilled with all 4 of the presentations. I'm very excited about the difference in tone and style that all of them have. Um, fortunately or unfortunately, um, I have a deep connection to one of the shows. I work at Village Theatre and we did, um, uh, uh, The Passage in both our Festival of the Musicals and in our Beta Series developmental production. Um, so I, I need to, uh, recuse myself from, from voting, uh, I believe. So, um, uh, unfortunately I'm not gonna be able to give any money to anyone because I would otherwise be a little swayed probably in my in my choosing, but I was thrilled with all of the presentations and I'm a little relieved that I don't have to actually divvy up my dollar.

Well, your questions and your support have been great, and it was also great to get to know you in the class we did together. So thank you for taking the high road and wonderful. So we will then go on to— Jonathan. Frank.

Well, either one. Jonathan, that's— yeah, sure, go for it.

Okay, so typically what I try to do is think about it as a portfolio of investments in terms of how we work with Kevin and Pam before on this. So I think of diversification, and I think of best chance of return on investment as well as something I like. Right? So I would rather, you know, you buy what you know, right, in investing. So you gotta like it, but you also gotta have sanity about what you can get back as an investor. So, so Bleeding Love, I mean, first of all, I thought all four were great. And while obviously very advanced, to Frank's point, I did think Bleeding Love was timely. I think the team was strong, and I like a lot of the teams as well in terms of how you presented. I think I think you presented your pitch well. So I gave that 30 cents. I do think that the passage is very strong and is— there are so many lanes that it could be produced through that its need for capital is stronger. And I think the opportunity is the best of the passage. It's 60 cents. And then I think that when we get sort of the things that are into more nichey sort of targeted audiences or targeted themes, I just, I get more concerned about the broad base appeal and how far, and how far we can take it. So, but I don't, I'll take options on Simon and George as well as Great Wall for 10 cents each, and I believe that is a dollar.

That is exactly $1. You are correct. Excellent.

Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you. And 10 and 10 is what it should be, so make sure it's 50 cents. Perfect, perfect. Frank, how are you going to divide up your dollar?

Um, well, I always like to have Jonathan go because then I can look at my strategic view of how I should isolate my investment going through it. But at the end of this, uh, point, I am going to take a Pamela moment and I'm, uh, a dollar on the passage. And I'd actually throw my real money behind it. I connected to that story. I loved it a a lot. Maybe getting old is impacting me, but just tremendous. All the— loved all the pitches. All were great. Interested in hearing the music from Great Wall. Thought you guys did phenomenal stuff, but I'm all in on The Passage.

Wonderful. Thank you, Frank. And next we have up Brian.

Hi. Okay, so I started with 10. 10 cents to Great Wall because I like the story of it. I think it needs a little more time to marinate and really expand and flesh out those stories. I also— and so 10 there. 10 to Simon and Jorge. I laughed and laughed and laughed on this. So 10 there as well. Nothing to Bleeding Heart only because I don't know what more I can contribute to Bleeding Heart. It's well on its way. Got great exposure already and great buzz, so I don't know how I can help there. The rest of it, I gave 82 to The Passage. I just immediately connected to the story. I love the music. I see it. It's clear. It's— the next step is crucial, and that's the type of show that I like to produce. Well done.

Fantastic. Great commentary, and thanks for your contribution. And next we have Meredith. Hi, everyone.

Again, I want to state that everything was just phenomenal. The way that I would split up my cash would be $20 each to Great Wall and Simon and Jorge. I loved both of the concepts, but most of my money would go to The Passion just because I think that the concept is relatable. I think we don't give kids enough thought and how they process things. We try to hide things from them, and being able to see it through their eyes is something that needs to be seen.

Well said, and thank you so much for that. And next and last, we have James Rocco.

I am unmuting myself. Hi again, wonderful. Uh, it was really exciting to see all these different presentations of a diverse group of musicals, really, really interesting, and obviously many different voices. I loved the vulnerability of The Passage presentation, and I would put 50 cents of my dollar behind The Passage. Um, and then I I felt Bleeding Love is so pertinent in many ways and it's so ready to go. I'm not so sure it needs a developmental reading. Nonetheless, I would invest money in this show, so I thought I would put 25 cents to Bleeding Love. Simon and Jorge, you know, you made me laugh for the first time in a couple of weeks, so I was really happy about that. I would put 15 cents behind that. And finally, I felt the Great Wall, I was really interested in it. And I loved the music that I heard, and I loved the way you spoke. I just wasn't sure what was going to happen next. And so I put 10 cents behind the Great Wall.

Wonderful. Great feedback from all of our judges. And thank you for putting in the time and the thought moment to get— do your math. And Tim, you can now tell us the tallies. Do you have them?

I do have the tallies live here, and for those of you that have been following along, the dollar winner is The Passage. You have achieved the most investments. You are guaranteed the virtual read with Apples and Oranges and Kyle Wright and Sierra and I all working together with you to do your show.

Congratulations.

Congratulations, passage. Thank you. I can't wait. And now for Nellie. Nellie, how are our calculations looking on your side of the fence?

Well, it follows suit. The audience also overwhelmingly chose the passage, although all of the teams got votes. And so it was, if I made the audience have a dollar also, it went 15 cents to Simon and Jorge, 20 cents to The Great Wall, 25 cents to Bleeding Love, and 40 cents to The Passage.

Wonderful.

Well, we, Donna Lynne has texted me some information, and this is I guess, uh, everybody got my text number, and I'm going to turn the floor over to Donna Lynne right now.

Thank you. Well, I enjoy taking my Goodspeed hat off, but now I'm going to put it back on, um, because all of these projects and all of these writers are just phenomenal, and I'm lucky to be in the position to offer support to so many writers. So I would love to offer each of these teams the opportunity to join us at the 2021 Johnny Mercer Writers' Colony here in East Haddam. We can talk about how and when and all of that later, but you're all on the shortlist and we'll be in touch, okay?

Wow, Donalyn, that is incredible. That's a huge opportunity, and your writers' colony is a very special place, so congratulations and surprise, you all win. You all win.

That just happened.

You all win anyway.

I just had that impulse this afternoon, so we didn't plan that. I just was so blown away by the work.

Just so blown away by the work. That is fabulous, Donalyn.

We can show the text thread to, um, shoot about it. And I'm getting texts from some of the other judges who don't want to go— oh wait, maybe here's another one. There's a lot of chatter for you other shows, I must say. So, uh, I— we don't have anything to present right now online, but what we, Pamela and I, have promised and will always do is to help these shows get to the next level, as with our entire team. And why don't we thank our team right now for putting all this together?

We couldn't have done this without our whole team, and I want to give a shout out to Allie Rice, Ido Gall, Christopher Sepulveda, and Nellie Beavers. Thank you you so much for making this happen today. Yay! Thank you. And for all of you watching, we're thrilled that you did, and we hope you've enjoyed learning about these great new shows. And truly, every single show is just like Frank said, we're in the NFL now. These shows are solid and ready and thrilling in their own right. And so Bravo to all the teams and everyone, all of you out there, please stay in touch with us if you want to through our YouTube channel and our website. And until next time, everyone, please stay safe and healthy. We want to bring everybody back up and we'll wave goodbye. So thank you again. Bye everyone.

Bye all.