Sing Tank Live - THEatre ACCELERATOR New Reality Edition - Spring 2021

Yeah, that's Ali.

I'm doing you after the judges only. [No speech]Apples and Oranges Arts Theater Accelerator culminates in a live virtual pitch session.

Our 6 writing teams from our New Reality Edition present their shows to theater executives, investors, and tech industry veterans.

Watch as our teams pitch to our judges.

That's Sing Tank.

Hello, I'm Pamela Winslow Kashani, and I'm here with my husband and cohort co-founder of Apples and Oranges, Tim Kashani. And together we welcome you to Sing Tank, which is our, where 6 of our wonderful musical theater teams, which we've been working with for the last 2 weeks, come together to pitch their original musicals to our friendly sharks from the theater industry and beyond. It's all done in fun and celebration. And if you haven't seen Think Tank before, thank you for being a first-time joiner. And if you've seen other Sing Tanks, welcome back. Today ends our 11th Theater Accelerator, which is a 2-week virtual program where we coach creative teams using Silicon Valley principles to help them become not just thriving creatives, but creative entrepreneurs so that they can take the starving out of artist. But these last two classes have been a little different and a little more special. Can you tell us why?

Yes, I can. This time we call it the New Reality Edition because it feels like we've all been living in a new reality for the past year. And we've been using Zoom for the class itself, but we've also been using XR or extended reality techniques, meaning augmented reality and virtual reality. For education as well as exploration into the futures for these shows. And it's not just for the stage to virtual aspect, it's for the entire developmental process. We gave each team a headset, and with that headset, they were able to come in and play and learn. And the exciting thing about it is with any new technology, there's always a little learning curve that happens to it, but they took to it and they embraced it. And we came in and we ran through a full 40-minute virtual musical that we have built as a test case that you all get to hear about at another event. But it's been absolutely fantastic. Like anything, this does not happen with just our team and the participants. We had amazing mentors that came throughout the week and they spent time, they spent at least an hour each day with our participants talking about their backgrounds and everything from business to new realities to Broadway to you name it. We had some very open conversations about what our industry was and what we all hope to have an industry that grows from everything that we've learned over the past couple months. So big thank you to all of our mentors. How does this work? It's fairly simple. For those of you that have seen it before, you know that each team is given 5 minutes to pitch their show in any way that they seem fit. At the end of that pitch, We then have a 5-minute question and answer session. And during that question and answer session, our judges get to come up for clarification as well as anything that they wanna understand about the future of the show. We do that 6 times. After we do that, we bring everybody back up as a reminder of the 6 shows. That way the first show doesn't get the short end of the stick. And we get another overall 5 minutes to ask any clarifying questions. And then the judges go off and do the hard part, which is to figure out how to invest their virtual dollar. And they can divide that up any way they want to, to share with the shows.

Why don't we meet those wonderful judges that we brought on? We are thankful for our mentors and equally thankful for these wonderful judges. First up, Deborah Barrera, a dear friend and multiple Tony Award-winning producer. She's a founder of the Women's Independent Producers Group and a member of the Broadway League. She recently joined the ex-producing team with The Seven Fingers, which will reopen Club Fugazi in San Francisco later this year. Very exciting. And a much appreciated member of the Theatre Accelerator team. Please say hello, Debra.

Hello, how's everybody doing today? You can't answer.

I'm doing great.

I'm looking at, I'm looking at all the faces of the artists, and so have fun, guys. It'll be fine.

Thanks, Debra. Rowan Casey is a songwriter and composer whose music and lyrics have premiered off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theatre, at the New York Fringe Festival, and the New York Musical Theatre Festival. He's a former finalist in NPR's From the Top and a recent Theater Accelerator alum. Hello, Rowan.

Hello, thrilled to be on this side.

I'm sure you are.

Thank you.

Cindy Citrone is founder and CEO of Citrone33 Foundation. She's a mother of 4 and a cancer survivor, and she maintains strong community ties to Pittsburgh, her hometown, with her philanthropy with Unpack U, which she's created, Wellness in the City, and now going to be all over the the country, the Pittsburgh Penguins Foundation and the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. And she is also a proud minority owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Welcome, Cindy. Hey, glad to be a rookie. Thanks for diving in. Next, Robert Diamond founded Broadway World in 2003, which is now becoming the largest theater website in the world. He also serves as the site's editor-in-chief, covering Broadway and beyond with specific local coverage for over 100 cities in the United States. In over 40 countries worldwide. Welcome, Robert.

Thank you so much. Excited to be here today.

Fantastic. David Hornig has been a venture capitalist for more than 20 years, investing in early-stage technology startups, but also Broadway musicals and plays, including Avenue Q, Hadestown, and Slave Play. In addition, David sits on the board of the television and film production studio MediaRes, the makers of The Morning Show, which I love. Hello, David, and welcome.

Hi, excited to hear all your productions.

Wonderful. Alani Ilongwe, once primarily a performer, his creative passions led to a new artistic mission aimed at developing immersive VR and streamed theatrical productions. And he and fellow judge Rowan Casey are currently developing At the River I Stand, which was invited to the Johnny Mercer Writers' Colony at Goodspeed before receiving a workshop production at TheatreWorks Hartford and was accepted into our last class of Theatre Accelerator. Hello, Ilani.

Yo, what up?

Great to see you.

I feel like I'm interviewing you.

I'll kill it.

I'm excited to see your shows.

Sierra Iveson has developed over 75 new musicals ranging from readings to world premieres, including producing the National Alliance for Musical Theatre's Festival of New Musicals for 5 years. That is no easy feat. Currently, she designs narrative story experiences for physical and virtual spaces. Welcome, Sierra.

So happy to be here as always with Apple and Oranges.

Good luck, everybody. Frank Kavanaugh at Fort Ashford. His role provides executive and operational management for major corporations, including Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard. He grew his own company, Force Protection Inc., from less than $1 million to over $1 billion in 6 years. Impressive. An 11-time Sing Tank judge and Tim's college bestie, Hello, Frank.

Frank has not missed a Sing Tank yet. He has not.

Street's not broken. Glad you're here today. And lastly, we have Jason Ma. He's the creator of Gold Mountain, an original musical that celebrates the striving immigrant spirit, the redemptive power of love, and the ultimate nobility of self-sacrifice among a team of Chinese railroad workers. He's the recipient of ASCAP's Cole Porter Award for his work as composer lyricist and is an accomplished actor as well. He currently is writing a new musical commissioned by the Village Theatre, and he was part of Theatre Accelerator Spring 2017. Welcome, Jason.

Thank you, it's great to be back. Good luck everyone.

And Jason also had a chance, as did Deborah, to see some of the pitches last Friday where everybody was practicing, so you might hear some "wow" or "hmm, what happened?" from Jason.

Hopefully a lot of wow. And that segues right into the fun part, the best part. We get to see these wonderful presentations. So let's Let's start off with our first show. We have J. Quinton Johnson, Julia Rue, Linda Chai Chester, and David Kaufman with Alice's Wonderland.

How do you know I'm mad? You must be, said the cat, or you wouldn't have come here.

Ready?

Okay!

Tonight we're gonna rock!

Hello, my name is J. Quinton Johnson, aka JQ. And I am a musical theater composer. Additionally, I've been in this movie, this movie, this movie, this movie, and this show.

Heard of it?

Hi, my name is Julia Rue. I'm a Korean-American musical theater writer and composer lyricist. I've had two shows commissioned and produced by the American Repertory Theater. I'm a student at Harvard University, and I just turned 22.

And the song you are hearing right now is from our new musical, Alice's Wonderland.

Alice's Wonderland is a modern take on the novel by Lewis Carroll, but in our story, Alice isn't the passive little protagonist that you might recall.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to dream any dream worth dreaming?

Instead, she's a brilliant teenaged coder who has single-handedly created a video game called Wonderland. With it, she aspires to shatter the tech world's glass ceiling and become a digital pioneer.

So step back It's a huge dream.

Some may say impossible.

When Alice's friends could care less about playing her game, the insecurity sets in. In a fit of self-doubt, Alice pulls the plug, causing her game to distort and glitch.

When the mysterious rabbit suddenly emerges from the screen and offers her an escape, Alice has a choice to make. Who are you?

The wildly more interesting question is, who are you?

Hurry, Alice, don't delay. Come follow me down, down, down, down.

Alice makes the choice to escape, following Rabbit into her own virtual world.

But something is very wrong in Wonderland.

Hello?

Anyone there?

In order to save Wonderland and fix the game, Alice must level up to defeat the deadly virus known as the Queen of Hearts.

No!

No!

No! With his head.

On her way, she meets Wonderlanders like you've never seen them before, like the Caterpillar.

I ain't got the time.

What am I gonna do? I'm just a caterpillar.

I'm just trying to lay my head up on my pillow.

The Cheshire Cat.

Let's take it up a notch, like pickety-plock, pickety-pickety-pickety-plock, pickety-plock.

And the Mad Hatter.

Ahh!

Let me show you how we break it down here in the underground.

Look around, look around.

Alice in Wonderland's soundscape is a genre smoothie comprised of hip-hop, gospel, bubblegum pop, and traditional musical theater. You ain't never heard an Alice like this before, dawg.

I'm trying to start a digital revolution, wipe them servers and reboot them.

We envision a live stage production that incorporates augmented reality into our narrative through the use of projection panels surrounding the audience as Alice descends into Wonderland. It's like Dorothy stepping into Oz and filling the screen with color. It's a Wizard of Oz for 2021. Dorothy needed Oz to realize that home is where she belongs. Alice needs Wonderland to realize that she is capable. How many of us have had a dream so big that we thought we could never make it a reality? We are currently consulting with the University of Arkansas Little Rock Engineering Center for XR Development, the Universal Hip-Hop Museum, and AMAS Musical Theater. For a live stage development. We seek $25,000 to fully develop the show using virtual technologies so we can get the story and music ready for the next step while creating assets that help build our community and launch our brand. Brought together by David Kaufman and Linda Chichester, we have written this entire show during quarantine. In addition to teens, parents, gamers, and artists, this is a show for everyone. Our team transcends 3 different generations and our story blossoms from our personal experiences as artists. Throughout every obstacle, we have followed our hearts. That is what this story is all about. It's not an escape from reality. It's a reimagination of what could be.

All right, well done right out of the gate, so strong. Let's open it up for some questions from our judges. Jason.

Wow, just, this is, this is the pitch that your show deserves to have. You totally nailed it, and I loved how Julia's voice became Alice's voice, very, very wise. And I appreciate that, Linda and David, you let the show speak for itself because it really can speak for itself. It's a very, very strong piece of writing. So congratulations, that was really terrific.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have a question. I actually am really excited by this show. Just in the other room, I have 600 copies of Alice in Wonderland from different illustrators. So I am a believer in this story and it's exciting, and I'm a technologist, so it's exciting to hear how you're adapting it. That's, that's really fun. I would love to hear more about how you think about these, these virtual walls interacting with the stage and how you're thinking about bringing this to, bringing this techno feel to a physical audience.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

First off, thank you so much for being here and for watching our pitch. We're so excited to show it to you. So, Quinn and I talked a lot about this, the way that we envision the show coming into place. You saw a little bit of this in the pitch. What we're picturing is the show starts off kind of like a plain Jane, just Alice in the middle. It's dark, you know, a normal theater situation, maybe perhaps in the round. And then the second that she jumps, the second that the rabbit appears, things start to get a little funky. And then the second that she jumps into Wonderland, it's kind of that moment in Wizard of Oz when the screen turns to color, except for the theater. This is now immersing our audience in the Wonderland that we envision. So that would mean that the projections kind of surrounding the audience might come to life. Obviously Quinn and I aren't projections designers, but we have this vision in mind. In a way the audience would feel like they are also in Wonderland in a really, really immersive augmented reality experience.

Great.

I have a question building on what David said. Obviously, there's a lot of people that are fanatics about Alice in Wonderland, and I love the comparison to Wizard of Oz. I think that— how do you plan on engaging that community? I mean, because I think you already, you know, you have an advantage to some other shows that people already understand somewhat out of the story. How would you engage them, you know, to, to create your audience and making it marketable?

We're looking to expand beyond just the regular theater audience on this because the video game is actually inherent to the narrative. We're looking for really going for the, for the, uh, the music game audiences and also expand into the whole digital aspects of this. So social media, video game, and also into the music because the pop genres of music like that.

It seems like there's an opportunity here to launch a game as part of the marketing campaign, and, and, uh, so it looks like you've thought about that.

Yeah, in terms of the digital world, uh, we're looking at— could be like a, like, first-person narrative kind of game where the, the viewer, the audience, actually becomes Alice into this magical world, or Or it could be a version where the live actors are presenting the characters of the show and bringing the audience like as helpers into this world of Alice. Or it could even be like a location-based experience like Sleep No More, where it's like QR codes and interactivity like that and holograms. But we're looking for this first amount of money to just solidify the story a bit more, solidify our assets and music prep and branding and just really plow forward.

Quick question, do you envision all of the performers being physical people, or is there going to be a blending between performances, physical and digital?

Okay, I'll jump in. I think it'd be— we originally are thinking of it all physical, but, you know, it could be that the, like, the rabbit maybe first appears as a digital kind of broken image, a glitched image, and then becomes into reality, becomes real, and then goes back into the digital screen. So we did kind of breaking that wall.

How did you all meet each other in COVID?

You want to jump?

Did a lot of investigating. I mean, we put up ads, we looked, we went through the internet, we went to, you know, different, uh, articles. We, you know, we really went through so many people to get a wonderful You know, J. Quinton and Julia, you know, we went to look at people who are the most talented and had a lot to give.

Yeah, we interviewed like over 200, researched over 200 writers to find this team. 'Cause it's, 'cause you know, in rap and hip hop, it's not musical theater. Musical theater is not rap and hip hop and pop, you know? So we just, it just took us a while until we found that right instinct feel for the team. And they are terrific.

Well, we are at 5 minutes, but I'm gonna answer one of the questions for you because I can't help myself, which was Cindy saying, How do you bring in the traditional musical theater audience and those that love Alice in Wonderland? And I'm going to throw this to J. Quinton because the musical styles— I want you just to highlight your background and how you've sonically approached to bring in all those different groups.

Yeah, absolutely. The, the approach with the music was one that still honored all of the conventions of musical theater. Right? So it still wanted to stay a traditional musical, just using different musical language. So that I really, I really hope to speak to those traditional audiences while introducing them to a bit of that, the flavors of that genre smoothie I mentioned over the course of the pitch. So it's still much, much similar to Hamilton. It's still a very traditional show, but it's just utilizing perhaps newer musical language.

Fantastic.

Wonderful answer. Thank you. Wonderful, wonderful presentation. As Jason said, wow. Let's move on to our next show. We have Joshua Franklin to tell us about the consoling mechanism.

Have you ever had that dream where you're running up a hill and suddenly, with no warning, you find yourself midair?

Imagine this: you wake up to discover that half of your body is suddenly unresponsive, and your mother, who's always been your constant source of support, is gone. Now imagine being a high school teenager dealing with this new reality. In our world filled with self-driving cars, virtual reality, gaming avatars and chat rooms up in a cloud. Would you choose to embrace this new painful reality or lose yourself in an artificial world that's as easy as one click away? These are the choices facing our main character Valerie, and this is the world of The Consoling Mechanism. The Consoling Mechanism is a contemporary musical that forces us to examine how technology has affected our humanity. We meet Jared, Valerie's tech guru father, who we discover in an attempt to preserve a piece of his past has created a computer program built from the neural networks of his late wife. <LYRICS>Pieces remain, though we pretend within the creases there's no pain.</LYRICS> This program inhabits an avatar named Andrew, which Valerie meets through her VR lenses, and she ends up developing feelings for Andrew, not knowing that he is created from her mother's neural networks, or even that Andrew is in fact not a real boy, but an AI creation.

Am I caught in a dream? If I am, don't wake me 'cause I'm finally free.

In the end, she has to make the difficult decision to keep her love for Andrew or reconnect with her family and reality. When I started writing the show several years ago, I had no idea we soon would all be searching for normalcy through virtual worlds. It's been called the Black Mirror of musicals, and hasn't this past year felt like one big Black Mirror episode? We have two choices: dive deeper into isolation or express ourselves fully, as Valerie's non-binary sibling Asher seems to do.

I'm just living life on fleek. This is how the good Lord made me. Hate me? He don't stand a chance when you're working with Versace and the master at the dance.

This is the perfect show for these imperfect times. Maybe we are in a Black Mirror episode. This explains why I opened a gay bar in a conservative town in 2020.

Then again, maybe I'm not even real. I might be ready now to describe the why and how, and there I go again. It's a no-show.

When I'm ready, I'll get back to you.

Those reviews are real. So I'm looking for $20,000 to begin immediate development of Valerie's virtual world, culminating in a mixed reality virtual reading. You won't regret coming on board, and if you choose not to invest, well, someday you may need a consoling mechanism of your own best guess.

So how about it?

Come design the future with me. Thank you. Escape. I'm just fine with my greatest disguise.

Thank you, Josh. Appreciate the comedy. You have my heart there. Let's pull up the judges.

I guess I'll start since clearly Broadway World liked some of its— it must be good. I'm curious, seeing that it's been done before, I guess at 54 Below, it looked like, or other live audience spots, what did not work in those venues that's helped the show evolve?

That's a great question. I've worked really hard on development with Virginia Rep. I've gone down there for several weeks throughout the past few years to develop it. We did a 29-hour reading in New York. I was selected for NAMT this past year, which helped further in the development. I think the next step— I wouldn't say anything went wrong. I think the next step is just figuring out how to implement some of these new technologies, especially after what I've learned the past 2 weeks, and how to filter them into the show without losing the show's humanity and heart. Which really is like at the center of the piece.

All right, next question.

Jason, would you tell us why this is your story to tell?

Yeah, for sure. I think for a few reasons. First of all, I wanted to represent the disabled community on stage. I think that's underrepresented in the Broadway community. And secondly, I had the wonderful opportunity to develop a friendship with Mark Sackley, who sadly passed away about 2 years ago. But he was a major force in DC for the disabled community. He wrote a lot of the policy changes that have happened in our country. So getting to know him and getting to know his story, which is very reflected in the Consoling Mechanism. And he was a star athlete, 20 years old, driving too fast, got in a terrible car accident, and had to go through— and he's— he talked me through this process of his deep depression and dealing with this new reality in a wheelchair. And thank God he came through that because he created so much change for that community. So I think that's at the heart of why I feel justified in sharing his story through Valerie's story.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And as you think about the role that the father plays in that story, because obviously this idea of do I retreat into the computer is a pretty modern and compelling one, how do you think about this father's role and how he moves forward that core story?

Um, well, I can't wait to send you the script so you can see, but he's also dealing with major loss. I mean, he lost his wife. Um, so he, he does toe that line of like wanting to reconnect with his wife through this program because he knows that the program is developed with his wife, um, wife's life experience and her thought process. And I'll let you see if ultimately he decides that's a good decision or a poor decision. But, you know, the tragic thing about his story is he designed these self-driving cars that caused the accident in the first place. So it's a lot for him to unpack the guilt, the shame, looking at his daughter in a wheelchair and instantly blaming himself for that. That's hard to process.

Time for one more.

Cindy, I'll sort of throw it on there.

I'm coming to you from Disney, so I have a lot of things. Your mechanism, comforting mechanism, sort of was reminiscent of Baymax from Big Hero 6, you know, comfort provider and such. Is your AI character universally like like, you know, someone that you all want to— he's so successful because you all want to be comforted by him, or is it just more specific to the main character since it's, it's a mother's?

That's an excellent question. We actually, um, in Virginia worked with a company called Root VR, and they specialize in virtual reality for, uh, children's mental health. So they help children— yeah, I know, right? They help children process trauma with using VR, but it is specifically developed to their circumstance and what they would connect to. And it's reflected in the show as well. It's that idea of merging science with emotion, and it's the same thing with theater, merging technology with story. So that really fascinates me, but to answer your answer your question in a short way. Yes, this avatar is specifically designed to comfort Valerie.

Yeah.

Okay, we are at time. Thank you so much, Josh.

Thank you.

Your wonderful dry sense of humor, always greatly appreciated.

Indeed, indeed.

And congratulations on, on the opening of your venue.

We're gonna get there someday.

Yes, yes, for sure.

Thank you.

All right, let's move. Let's take a 180 and have a— experience an entirely different type of show. We've got Dori Clark and Marie in Contrera with Absolute Zero.

There's nothing like a spy thriller, especially during turbulent times. There's primal satisfaction in watching a hero vanquish the bad guy, explore exotic foreign locales, save the world, and get the girl. That's what he looked like in the 1960s. But what would today's spy hero look like? Meet Sam Knight. She's the CIA's top agent, a hard-drinking maverick, unafraid to break any rule or seduce any woman. Think James Bond meets Katie Lang meets Megan Rapinoe.

Some say the skies have lost all their charm. Not with that hand and not with that arm.

Stealthily moving downward.

My private, the only way to fly.

There's been a terrorist attack on Paris's metro system. Just a warning so far of more to come.

Sam Knight, with the help of her assistant Edith, flies in to investigate.

Of course the job gets lonely, you need some cheek to cheek. Ladies come around every day of the week.

Is that really appropriate when you're on on duty?

I mean, what?

Amidst her romps with flight attendants and a British MI6 agent, she's forced to question her entire way of life when she discovers that the villain is her jilted ex-girlfriend Elsa. Elsa is a brilliant Barnard College chemistry professor who's now using her prodigious powers for evil. Absolute zero is the coldest temperature known to humanity, a purely theoretical construct because no one has ever been able to reach it until now. Elsa has discovered how to reach absolute zero, and to exact revenge on Sam, she's vowed to freeze the world.

<LYRICS>I felt the charge when you entered the room, a chemical reaction, a supersonic boom. Electrons parted, the skies opened wide, a maelstrom in the universe, no place you can hide.</LYRICS> As she races across continents to stop Elsa, Sam comes face to face with the consequences of her own actions.

With a climactic final chase scene atop the Sydney Opera House, will Sam be able to rescue her new love interest, stop Elsa, and save the world?

Marie and I are both members of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. Workshop, and I'm fortunate enough to have been a producer of a multiple Grammy-winning jazz album. Marie is a former professional big band leader, one of the few women in the world to have ever done this, and we're really excited to bring the traditional jazz vernacular of spy music and meld it with musical theater. Absolute Zero has already achieved a great deal of momentum. We've been written up in Forbes, and our demo video has featuring Lexi Lawson, who played Eliza in Hamilton on Broadway, and Christiana Cole, who sings in the Philip Glass Ensemble.

Absolute Zero features an all-female and trans and gender non-conforming cast, and of course we know it'll be popular with the LGBTQ community, but it'll also appeal to spy lovers everywhere, and there are plenty of them. The James Bond franchise alone has grossed more than $7 billion worldwide. We plan to reach this audience through targeted social media and outreach to literary organizations and conventions for mystery and thriller writers, which are also attended by influencers and lovers of the genre.

We believe Absolute Zero has the potential to become a long-term moneymaker for producers and investors as audiences become Sam Knight fans and will provide a ready-made audience for sequels, which is a rarity on Broadway now, certainly commonplace in film, and we believe a lucrative possibility. We're currently seeking a lead producer or a nonprofit theater partner to work with in collaborating on a 29-hour developmental workshop that would be conducted efficiently using VR technology. We believe that Absolute Zero can become an enduring and powerful franchise that mixes excitement and escapism with emotional depth, and we're really excited for you to be part of the journey.

Thank you.

I'll start out by saying that the idea that you've come into this with the, with the, with this desire to ultimately create a character that recurs is, from an economic standpoint, is pretty compelling. Now you have to do it. That's a, that's a challenging task, but But that is an exciting thing to think about.

Thank you, David. We're already ideating future potential sequels down the road.

I'm so curious.

Tell me more about a virtual reality 29-hour reading, how you plan on using that as part of your rehearsal process.

Thank you very much. So ultimately, as we've learned during the accelerator, One of the advantages of VR is the fact that you are able, with the click of a button really, to make fairly substantial changes in terms of layouts, in terms of sets, in terms of how things are framed up, that actually would be relatively substantial when you have real-world actors moving around and doing things. And so, by bringing people together in a virtual environment, we believe that we can essentially create a minimum viable product and use this as a way of inexpensively ideating on the story and making sure that we have the creative truly buttoned up before any investor dollars are put toward bringing people in a room together, which with COVID protocols is very challenging these days.

Roland, you had your hand up.

Yeah, and I think you kind of answered it, but my question was really just, is the VR for the reading and getting the creatives together and creating that collaborative space for development, or is the VR part of the finished product going forward and part of the spinoff? So you kind of addressed that, but if there's anything more, feel free to add.

Yeah, I can jump in here. So I think for the next step, absolutely, VR is a developmental tool. But also, I think, I think of it as a way for us to start envisioning what the finished product might look like. You know, we might be able to start building some assets and things like that for a full run.

And if I could ask you a question, another question to bounce off that, post your developmental process in the VR sector, can you give me a sense of where you'd like to see this land? Let's call it a wish list.

Yes, thank you, Deborah. Ultimately, our goal is in some ways a traditional one. We would love to partner with perhaps a regional theater and ultimately to make it to Broadway, perhaps as early as the 2026 season, maybe 2029, but we're working assiduously toward it, and we're very excited to be leveraging it simultaneously XR technology in order to streamline the process, make it more financially efficient, and also to create promotional assets that can help build the following for the project.

That's great. I just wanted to commend you both. I did have a chance to read the script and listen to some of the music this morning. It's fantastic.

Thank you.

There's a lot of fun comedy in the beginning, particularly in the music, which I just wanted to point out to folks because I was laughing out loud. It was— and, and thank you for creating a Matthew Bourne James Bond character in as a female. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. It was great.

Well done.

Thank you, Lonnie. You had your—

yeah, on that note, um, I have to say that Salt is one of my favorite movies, and Evelyn Salt is one of my favorite characters. Um, speaking of franchises that need some sequels, I'm upset. Um, but I wonder like, and I know that you're going to use the VR in the development to kind of like give you an idea of where it can go, but have you thought about at all the ways in which you might be able to use the XR technology to bring the audience on this adventure as well?

Yes, thank you. We have begun ideating and we're really excited to get further into the process so that we can really spend more time working with technologists so that we understand the full range of possibilities. But absolutely, one of the most compelling aspects of the spy genre is the fact that, as we stated at the outset of the video, it is about exotic foreign locales. It is about adventure. In fact, we, in the current version of Absolute Zero, ricochet from Washington, D.C. to Paris to Sydney, Australia. And so bringing the audience along on that journey having them be able to take part in it, and if there is the potential for sequels, being able to really take people around the world on a series of adventures is absolutely something that we're interested in.

That's all the time we have for questions. Thank you, judges, and thank you, Dorianne Marie.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's move on. Next up, we have Andrew Gerla and DJ Salisbury with Whisper Darkly.

We make the light, we make the room. This work of art, drawn from the heart, with smoke and perfume. But what is more, that you came for We make the night. And if you find that when the evening is through, you're a new you. We make the light of the light.

I'm DJ Salisbury, book writer for Whisper Darkly.

I'm Andrew Gerla, music and lyrics.

Andrew is a multiple award-winning composer-lyricist and Broadway pianist. With some pretty fancy fans.

And DJ is an Emmy Award-winning writer, and as director-choreographer, he's set over 100 productions from LA to Bogotá.

Gonna run in the rain.

Whisper Darkly is an immersive musical where the audience become the patrons of the Hush Club, Manhattan's most notorious speakeasy in 1928.

As they sit at their tables, the show explodes around them with electro-swing beats beats and cutting-edge theater magic.

"Wild!

I can be the queen of the seven seas!" Over the course of this one night, we follow three women as they make decisions that will change the course of their lives forever.

First is Topeka McShane, the gregarious and shrewd owner of the Hush Club, as she fights to save her business and her legacy.

Something I really love about this show and Topeka is that she is really ahead of her And in having this ownership of herself and of this, this club, she is making sure that she is passing this on to a family member who happens to be another woman because she believes in the power of women.

I was born right here in New York City.

Next is Wesandrea Cole Davis, the African-American star who's conquered Europe but never been able to prove herself in her hometown.

We find ourselves in the peak of the Harlem Renaissance when people of color are declaring who and what they are, how they feel. No matter the skin that she's in, Rosandra Cole Davis is definitely going to be in control of herself. Went from dead-end dirt roads to a play.

And finally, Evie, Topeka's niece and the heart of our story, fresh off the bus from her troubled Midwest home.

Love can come from family, but it also can come from other relationships and chosen family.

She just wants to feel loved and belong like we all do.

Something everyone can relate to, whether it's in the 1920s for 2021.

After a murder, a police raid, and a shocking revelation, the Hush Club and its surprising new owner emerge stronger than ever.

We want to bring Whisper Darkly to as many people as possible, and we're thrilled that VR technology allows us to expand our audience.

For anyone who can't get to a live production, we're developing a virtual Hush Club club experience. Patrons will be shipped a top-shelf bottle of hooch, ingredients for a bespoke cocktail, and a stereopticon-style viewer to be used with any smartphone to watch 360 videos of episodes from the show, including additional content exclusive to the at-home version.

We've had a series of workshops in New York and Orlando with fantastic Broadway actors, and the show is ready to move on to the next step.

We want to film songs and short scenes from the show in 360. The soundtracks from these can then be repurposed into a podcast version, reaching an even wider audience.

To shoot 2 15-minute episodes in high-def 360, we are asking for $75,000 for the film crew, the actors, post-production, and spatialized audio.

We're also looking for partners, both a commercial producer to help bring the Hush Club to life in innovative and exciting spaces, and a liquor brand to sponsor the development process in return for an exclusive beverage contract.

Everyone is longing for some sexy escapist fun, and Whisper Darkly delivers audiences a time-traveling, decadent night out in person or with friends 1,000 miles apart.

Wherever they are, the Hush Club is one place everyone belongs.

What's the password?

Indulge.

Yeah.

Thank you both. Judges?

And each question has to start with indulgence or they will not answer your question.

I guess I have a question because it seems like there's a real dichotomy between between the aesthetic of the show and technology. And so how do you think about, you know, dealing with that dichotomy?

Well, we want it to be essentially like a Star Trek holodeck or Westworld, where you know going in that we're going to blend the two worlds. The electroswing music right off the bat sets up that we're not really in 1928, we're in 1928 through the lens of 2021.

Beyond.

Yeah, it's sort of a retro-future feel, which gives us a lot of leeway to use all this technology, to use things like LCD screens and projection mapping in the space, and also to bring it into people's homes with, with that VR viewer. Thanks, Alani.

Yeah, I love the deliverables that you're sending out to everyone. And how, you know, like their Google Cardboard is actually something that is like, you know, looks of the time. I was curious in terms of like the immersive experience that you're creating, what does the cast size look like?

We're at a cast of 16. Now, of course, you would have some bar staff, but the cast itself is 16.

Rowan.

Um, yeah, I love— first of all, this is super fun, and I love the idea of this immersive product. But then also, if you can't get out for whatever reason, COVID or whatever it is, that you can still experience this and have access to like exclusive content, I think that's awesome. How much, like, how many of these episodes and for how long will you continue to produce, you know, in the new, the new stuff for that experience on its own beyond just your immersive side?

Yeah, so we're thinking probably about 10 to 12 of these episodes, and what's really exciting is not just that we can bring them into people's homes before they can get to a live production. It can build the audience, get them familiar with the score and love the characters and all that, but we can also then create extra content. So we can do backstory, we can do extra texture on all these characters, we can explode the narrative outside of the Hush Club. So we can film a story about Evie in her Nebraska home before she even gets to New York. We can look at Wysandria in her club in Paris, and we can really get people excited about these characters and feel like that when they do come to a live production, oh, you know what, I know a little, I know a little secret about her because I saw this before at home when I was in my own virtual Hush Club.

If you had to dream cast it, who would be the leads?

Oh my goodness. Well, are we free to throw around names? Well, one of the women that we talked about early on in terms of just her, her way of being, her whole presence, was Emily Skinner for the owner of the club as a possible someone. But there are so many wonderful performers out there that it's hard, we're hard-pressed to like zero in on any one. We do need the main male figure must be a superb tap dancer. So that sort of narrows the field a little bit.

That takes me out of the running, but thank you.

I don't know if you committed $75,000 right now, I'm sure they'd give you lessons. Lessons, absolutely. Debra, I'm sorry, I think I cut you off.

No worries, DJ, just bouncing off that now that Robert's asked you for your perfect cast. And I love Emily, by the way. What about location? Where would you like to launch this in real time, in the real space? And is the goal to shoot in the space that you would ultimately be performing live in, or a combination of of soundstages and live locations?

Yeah, I think we're really experimenting and exploring all these possibilities. I mean, one of the things that's really exciting for us is that we do envision a Whisper Darkly in cities all over the world, right? 'Cause it can be put into a huge variety of spaces. It can be put into abandoned warehouses or black boxes or any kind of space in any neighborhood, really.

I was just gonna say—

Some Bugazzi, maybe.

So, and in terms of then where we shoot, you know, I think if we could find a space, if there were a producer ready to come on board and say, yes, I'm going to grab up this amazing old space in Detroit or wherever it is and say, yes, we're gonna— we can trick this out to shoot it, um, we could then film there. We could also rent a soundstage. We could potentially, if we found the right space, we could find an actual existing club that, you know, is dark during the days and shoot then. I think there's a lot of possibilities for that.

Yes, and if I may jump in and say, one of the things that we could do in partnering with a regional theater, for example, is not have to worry about fitting into their proscenium schedule because we could find an alternative space in that region that may be a viable thing for them to try something else, to try immersive theater.

Cindy, did you have a question?

No, no, I was just commenting I could see it as a pop-up, like they love the generation you don't know where you're going. And then the other thing too is I love Whisper Darkly. I love the Hush Club. I'm not really thrilled with your logo. I think it looks too thoroughly Modern Millie with the Victoria. Like, I had trouble getting beyond that. I was, you know, so—

Thank you.

Something a little more seductive in that.

Thank you.

That's great. Thank you.

All right, we are out of time. Thank you both. Let's move forward. Next up, we have Truth Bachman and Jalen Livingston with Shapeshifters.

Hi, I'm Jalen Livingston.

My name is Truth Bachmann.

I'm a director and co-creator.

I'm a composer, writer, co-creator.

And I—

and I am—

am a shapeshifter. Bricks stay alive, 'cause tonight, for a night in our history, we live loud and proud, we live colorfully, publicly. Every brick, every stone has a story. Shapeshifter, I'm a shape. Shapeshifter has a story. Shapeshifter, I'm a shape. Shapeshifter, baby. Every brick, every stone has a story.

Of course this is a spy.

In the story of Shapeshifters, non-binary 14-year-old Mel is a high school bully caught between the worlds of boy and girl. Misunderstood by parents, teachers, and classmates, Mel's world is lonely and savage. But when Mel unearths a universe called Queer Time, their flaws become their superpowers. Mel finds a family of superheroes, the Shapeshifters, whose mission is to to save young teens from untimely death. An action-packed musical that combines the suspense of Watchmen with the camp of Glee, and drawing influences from Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Poe's Shapeshifters, is a universe of LGBTQ superheroes unlike any seen before. Shapeshifters calls audiences of every age, gender, and sexuality to find their tribe, sing along, and reach The hero within. Shapeshifters engages queer and trans youth, lovers of musical theater, and superhero enthusiasts alike. A platform for audiences to see themselves in the story, Shapeshifters is a brand new approach to the digital musical. Anybody can take the hero's journey by contributing a dance, song, or story of their own. In queer time, musical theater and and community collide as audiences witness one another as part of the unfolding story of Shapeshifters.

<LYRICS>Shapeshifters, don't let your portraits flourish and thrive. We're every child, every face, the Shapeshifters.

Shapeshifters, Shapeshifters, don't let your portraits flourish and thrive.</LYRICS> So hi everyone, thank you so much for watching. We are looking for $200,000 to bring Shapeshifters to life. This $200,000 will go towards the development of a Shapeshifters app that consumers and audience members can purchase to watch watch the story in comic book form on their phones and in virtual reality. The $200,000 will also go towards our cast album, which will be a part of the app experience, and original comic book animation. We will also use this $200,000 to help fund 6 months of company growth, product development, and further content creation.

Shapeshifters is more than It is movement that centers radical imagination as our greatest superpower. The Shapeshifters experience gives young people the tools to imagine a future where they can persist, resist, and survive into adulthood. Thank you.

Can you, can you tell us more about this idea? You said sort of in passing, oh, we'll make this an inclusive journey that'll include the possibility of of others contributing songs and experiences. Tell, tell us more about that.

For sure.

So there's an element of the Shapeshifters experience that lives on social media. And much like some of the emerging musical theater development of TikTok musicals, i.e., the Ratatouille musical and some other emerging musical forms, people will be able to go through this app and then respond to prompts that are built into the story that allow them to add their own personal experience. That lives on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, so that you can use a kind of hashtag, choose your own adventure kind of pathway to find your way yourself.

Gotcha.

Sierra?

I love the way you're thinking about audience engagement. I think that's going to be appealing to a lot of people. As you're writing for this sort of app-based experience, the show must be fairly episodic, I would assume. Can you talk to me about, like, how you've written the show to exist in, in that particular format?

Absolutely. So this started as a song cycle and as a concert, and from there we've had several residencies with Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, an ongoing residency at Joe's Pub, Musical Theater Factory, University of Arts, and several other places. Where we've really been able to develop the story as like a typical two-act musical. And then when the pandemic hit, we started to think about what other forms could this take, either in TV, either in a streaming service, and then in this more interactive way where people can go through the story like a comic book, where we can really use the superhero lexicon to our advantage and access this cultural sort of knowledge and understanding of what that is.

Bouncing off of that, if— are you fully jumping into the digital comic book model of like, you know, it's being distributed monthly, or is it all coming out all at one time?

Right now we've been thinking about it all coming out as book one and framing it around book one and the way that a kind of graphic novel would contain smaller comic books books within it, and there's certainly an opportunity to extend that universe. So we're looking forward to what that will mean for the form as well.

True.

Mason, could you tell us more about your characters, the intersection of their powers with their otherness? I think that's really interesting, and I'm not sure I got enough. During the pitch. I want to hear about them.

Sure.

So I'll start with Mel. Mel is the non-binary protagonist who's at the center of the story. And a couple episodes in, they discover that their power is actually the ability to control Queer Time. And Queer Time is this place where all of the versions of oneself, one's life, and one's death exist at once. And Mel has the ability to see each of those pathways and each of the options that lay before them.

Them.

And so when Mel stands on their rooftop feeling alone and feeling isolated and feeling like there's nobody in the world who understands them, through their power of being able to access queer time, they see the version of themselves that flies off of the roof and they see the version of themselves that jumps off the roof. And Mel is then at a point of a crossroads of having to make a choice of what is going to happen next.

Wow.

That is all the time we have. Thank you so much, judges, and thank you both for that great presentation. Let's explore our last piece, shall we? We have Adam Goodman with his show Seeds.

They erase us from the inside out. Ghosts.

Shells of what we used to be.

Of who we used to be. No one's really sure how it happened.

This place.

These cold, dark halls. These unwelcoming hospital beds. But it's here.

And we're here.

And we're lost.

Welcome to Sunny Hills. At the edge of the world sits a dystopian children's hospital where desperate, lost teenagers struggle to survive. Arriving mysteriously with no memories of their lives, they're kept under lock and key. Every day, the powerless teens rage in hollow attempts to escape their fluorescent prison, but every day devolves into an endless loop of infighting, violence, Sickness and futility. Every day is the same at Sunny Hills. Until Jane.

This is how I make everything around me bright.

Jane is not like the others. Jane remembers. In her pocket lies a secret. A small packet of seeds, each one triggering hazy recollections. Recollections of her family, her home, her normal life in the before times. In a world with no past, these wisps of memory give Jane a unique and profound power among the inmates, the power of hope and maybe a way out. But hope has a dark side too, and Jane's uncontrollable anger makes her a threat. She's quickly labeled a pariah by Chlorine, the tough and spiteful leader of the girl gang that rules Sunny Hills, and even more alarming, evil Dr. Jimmy's terrifying science experiments mining Jane's bottomless anger to fuel his own power. Only with love and kindness of surprising new arrival Alistair does Jane begin to gain control of her powers and use them to bring light and beauty to their world. But is it enough? As Jane discovers the secrets of their imprisonment and the terrifying truths of Sunny Hills, she threatens to plunge them all into an even more dangerous darkness.

This, this, this!

Seeds is a female-driven animated feature with a story of redemption, self-empowerment, and friendship for anyone who's ever felt lost. Viewers are plunged into a meticulously built urban fantasy world steampunk flavors, Lovecraftian creatures, and Miyazaki-style storytelling.

Love is our emancipation! Love is the only way I may be relieved!

Seeds represents my personal journey to find myself as I've been busy in music, theater, and games, working with composers like Mark Scheiman, Alan Menken, Aaron Zimflaherty, and Pasek and Paul, earning a double platinum record for my production on This Is Me from Greatest Showman. I've written songs for Disney parks and attractions and over 1,500 video games. The demo cast is ripe with a diverse array of seasoned Broadway and opera veterans, including Wicked's Riley Costello, Vegas: The Show's Michael Washington, opera star Katie Tang, and former American Idol finalist Anna Carmela. We've attracted hundreds of thousands of views across the course of our 2 months on TikTok, building over 11,000 followers. And our Instagram and YouTube channel are growing daily as we explore animatics and new production material in real time with our fans. The community we've built has inspired us to write a new song celebrating the relationship of two of the community character favorites, Annalise and Chlorine. It's thrilling to see a community grow and take ownership of these characters, spawning cosplay, fan art, and song covers. In March of 2021, we released a full cast album on all streaming services.

Dear Janie baby, we're so glad that you're gone. You were a horrible mistake.

Seeds needs partners to help us create the extended AR experience acting as a companion piece and pre-show to bring our world-building into homes and hearts all over the world. In order to refine the story and amplify the magic, these companion pieces can operate operate as part of streamed or live content. Seeds is a perfect tale for modern audiences, as its message is timeless, with strong themes of inclusivity, self-empowerment, and a diverse female-forward cast. It promotes the idea that true elevation lies in empowering each other, and through common understanding and growth, we can build a door to a better world.

What are you saying, Jane?

A way out. I know how.

Thank you, Adam. That was absolutely awesome. Judges, some questions for Adam?

John?

I want to start with something that's just a completely ridiculous observation, but Adam, Riley Costello and my son were in a show in Wizard of Oz together when they were like 8. They sang together. But the really cool thing, Jay Quinton, is that the lion in that show was James Monroe Iglehart. So it's just great to see. It's so fun to see Riley now on the Broadway stage. Stage. Can you tell me about— you talk about this being— it sounds like you don't want this to come to stage, that you want this to be a series that's either on screen, TV, etc. How do you think about that? In what way would you hope it most to be presented?

I feel like the story can be told anywhere. When I first conceptualized Sunny Hills and Jane and all her friends, Friends. I did it on stage and I did it for stage. As I, I had thought about the way that we could tell the story and, and be more creative with the animation and the other elements that I wanted to see on stage, I started to reconceptualize it as an animated series or a full animated feature. And it's been really exciting in my experience dealing with VR and video games and everything I've done over the past few years well, a few, 15 years, to think about ways that we can expand the world and the storytelling through those elements.

And one other quick question, which is, this story feels like it's going to explode with some conclusion, which, which will be, of course, incredibly satisfying, but will also then bring a conclusion to this crew's adventures. Yet it also feels like it has the opportunity, as we talked about earlier, of having the next, next episode. And so have you thought about that? Have you—

is—

do you think this is a world that ends in a story with a climax and it's over, or do you think there's more to it?

I don't feel like it's a world that ends, um, in the same way that I don't feel like it's a world that had any solid beginning. And we, we're extending that concept through our social networks and the way that we've built excitement around the characters and the way that I've seen the community adopt these characters and turn them into their own creation and help contribute to that story. I've imagined ways that the story can recycle and start fresh with a new group of people and how the characters, as they escape this, you know, dystopian world, can branch out into stories that extend beyond this once it ends.

Cindy, I saw you.

I know, and Adam, I know it's really difficult because I'm only seeing 5 minutes and I'm not getting the whole script, but I do have a concern because I feel like you're portraying an asylum and perhaps patients' mental health as angry and violent. Have you, you know, and that's something, a stigma that we really fight. Have you gotten any kickback or flare or anything against that, or do you have a, uh, you know, account, an advisor that you're working with or something to sort of of, you know, take a look at that.

We have started to flesh out the team with folks that can better inform concerns like that. The show is not— we don't state that it's a mental asylum. We talk about it being a hospital or a place where these kids end up. The issues that Jane is dealing with, our lead character in particular, don't necessarily revolve around violence. There are some violent outbursts. Outbursts, but those outbursts are due to misunderstanding of themselves as the characters experience growth. They're able to redirect that, and it's not all the characters, it's Jane and Clarine that come to head. But yeah, we are fleshing out the team with folks that can help us tell the story in ways that will lead to better understanding.

Next question.

I am curious about what— why are those kids institutionalized? What is that institution that they are in?

So it's not an institution as much as it is a place where the kids end up in between. The story, uh, at the heart of the story behind the redemption and behind this adventure that they go on are these kids that are stuck there by sort of, I would say, imprisoned by a man that has been lost in this purgatory for much longer than they were there. And he keeps them there to help him figure out how he can escape and how he can be better. The, the concept that the kids are in, in an institution is sort of threaded by Dr. Jimmy, our antagonist's desire to capitalize on, I think, what he misunderstands about himself in order to create his own redemption, which we see at the end of the story.

Thank you.

Sierra, when you talk about expanding into augmented reality, are you imagining keeping this on phones? Are you imagining headsets?

What—

how are you— where, where and how are you thinking about the augmented reality piece?

Yeah, so because we understand that it's difficult for folks to, you know, a lot of people don't really have access to AR or to VR and headsets, we have started to explore the concept of building stuff in AR where people can use their phones and lift them up to explore the world as it expands around them, even in their own homes as they're watching it. Let's say on a home TV, there would be cues in the film where they can hold up their camera or their device and see things sort of come out of the TV or swirl around the room as Jane is drawing in her picture come to life, some of those colors can burst in explosions around them. In the theater, part of expanding the concept of having a pre-show that extends the magic is, is definitely in that AR world where folks can walk around with their phones and hold them up in certain areas and see some of that come to life.

Thank you, judges. Thank you, Adam. We have seen all 6 incredible shows from our Spring '11 cohorts to our Spring '21 cohort, our 11th class. Losing my numbers here.

That's a time travel thing that's going on.

It is the time travel thing that we're going into another reality for sure. And now it is time to take a look at all of them. So judges, we're gonna bring up all the shows and you can ask any questions that we didn't have time for. If you have any clarifications that you need, please feel free to ask any of our teams any question.

And we're just flying by the shows right here to remind everybody the shows themselves. And on that note, we're going to open it up for 5 minutes of Q&A right now. Jason, start, then Deborah.

I'm going to ask Dory and Marie about absolute zero. First of all, Sam Knight is a really compelling and interesting character. And during your development of this story, have you considered putting them in— putting her in a world where she still has to bump up against misogyny and homophobia and racism? I wonder if there's an opportunity to see her fight two different kinds of evil instead of the one that she's fighting happening in your alternate world right now?

Yeah, well, go ahead, Marie.

As far as I'm thinking about it, that's what the sequels were for, right? So this particular world is where she's, she's in an all-female TGNC world. Maybe, you know, later she might go to outer space, later she might come to Earth.

So, I'll just add to that.

We only have 5 minutes, so I'm going to go quick.

Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

A quick question going back to Adam Goodman. Can you, and if I missed it, I apologize, What are you asking? What is your ask in terms of the financial contribution?

Yeah, so we're so passionate about telling the story that we've, we've invested a lot of our own money and time into creating these assets that we've already created. And, and we're, you know, we're going to do it regardless whether it's a motion comic or whether it's a self-funded, um, independent animated feature, which we're already exploring that. We're talking to producers right now, we're talking to agents, we're talking to a lot of folks. But what we really What we need is help creating these AR elements and the extended reality things that, like I said before, will expand the pre-show and bring the magic into the homes of our social network that we've already created so folks can get involved right now with the world of Seeds and understand, you know, how to empower themselves through the app set and the, and the experiences that we want to create.

So a commercial producer is not the full package.

Picture of what you're looking for right now.

Right, right, right now we're looking for tech help and tech development help. We're exploring production options right now. We, like I said, we have a few meetings set up with agents and producers in the coming weeks to explore all of that, but we're not closing down any options currently.

Gotcha. Thank you. Great presentation, by the way.

Frank, two quick questions. Alice and Wonderland. Um, kind of, if in that short-term $25K ask, can you just remind me again specifically what you're looking for?

I'll jump in for that. Um, yes, to complete the development of the show, uh, initially think of using virtual technologies, so it'd be probably 2 virtual readings, and then also the development of social media material for music clips, video clips, music prep, and branding.

Okay, and second question goes to It's a two-part question. It goes to Manhattan and SEEDS. The SEEDS had just— well, I'm just gonna go back to Manhattan. Sorry, $75K. Walk me through how you came up with that number.

Are you, are you meaning Whisper Darkly?

I'm sorry, Whisper Darkly.

That's okay.

We'll be Manhattan.

That's all good.

Think of me as the slowest judge.

I'll jump in first, Andrew, and chime in as you need. So we've talked to many people about a 360 film. We do know that the luxe quality that this— one of the stars of the show is the speakeasy. So we know that we'd really want to have a full set constructed in some way, in soundstage or on a dark theater stage, and then film it in 360. And then spatialized audio, we understand, is very expensive. So we were told that around $100,000 would get us those those two episodes, we pulled it down to $75,000 because we know people.

Okay, appreciate it.

Cindy?

I just wanted to suggest for Shapeshifters some alternative funding sources. There's some nonprofit foundations, for example, the Trevor Project, Lady Gaga's, you know, Born This Way Foundation. It might be an alternative source of some funding as well. Same with Whisper Darkly. I love the idea of marketing this to sort of like a beverage company and it becomes part of their ad campaign, because I think millennials would go crazy over it. And then, you know, getting you in the door and, you know, and then getting funding from there.

Thank you.

Alani, I think I saw you. Yeah, go for it.

Similar comments with Whisper Darkly, with the add-ons that you were talking about with your deliverables. I think that you can think about it in terms of like a video game season pass. If you're familiar with those, like, you know, they can— like, you'll buy, you know, Killer Instinct, like, for one price, but then, like, continuously, year after year, they're giving, like, these updates and these different experiences and these different characters that can help you to extend that universe the way that you want. And then for Shapeshifters, when you were talking about the choose-your-own-adventure aspect aspect and the time that was going on, it made me think about the video game Detroit, where, you know, like, you can basically click a button and it chooses a different path. And so that may be something to think about, along with, in terms of you thinking about how you're going to extend that series with that comic book aspect, there's the one-off series tie-ins that they do with comics to, like, explore a certain character in a certain situation. But also DC's Animated Universe. They're doing this thing where they're creating these interactive animated films that are like pulling past animated films that they've had along with current ones that they're creating, so that within the viewing experience you could choose your own adventure and then change the ending of the animated feature. So that might be another way for you to do that as well.

Is this what they did with The Killing Joke?

Exactly.

Okay, great. I'll look at that.

Thank you.

Yep.

All right, Rowan. Yeah.

Yeah, for Shapeshifters, I know at the, at the end of your ask, you said, you know, in addition to a couple of bullets, 6 months of, I think, development and then company growth. And I was just wondering if you could speak to what exactly company growth means for you guys.

Yeah, for sure. You want to take it through there?

I'll start and then So one of the things we know we want to do, we see a couple of different options in terms of how we collect funding for this. We see ourselves as an LLC and as a company to sort of venture into more commercial endeavors. And then we also see a nonprofit wing of Shapeshifters that can continually give back to the communities in which we're working. And so these two things should be feeding each other always. And I think that's really the groundwork that we want to lay over the course of those 6 months is, is the function sort of trade between those two arms of Shapeshifters.

And just to say that the kind of more traditional live theater element of Shapeshifters belongs to that nonprofit wing, wherein the more commercial individual consumer buying wing of Shapeshifters belongs to the LSP.

Okay, we have come to time. Judges, you have 3 minutes to do your math, and as a reminder, you can and divide your virtual dollar any way that you see fit. While the judges do that, we wanna take a minute to first of all, thank everybody for this last crazy amount of 2 weeks. We have done everything that we've done in Theater Accelerator in the past, plus used these new realities. And many of the participants had never used a headset before they came in or looked at augmented reality. And part of what we wanna do is show how we can use these tools in every aspect of our development. And we make ourselves do it too. We had a show called Winter Lights that was supposed to be live in November and December of last year and obviously was not. And we took from January to now, we built the entire show virtually with a very small team to test it out, as we like to say in Theater Accelerator, as the minimum viable product. And what it gave us was confidence in how we can get more stories stories out in the world that will embrace new digital mechanisms to empower writers and artists. And we're going to go all in on it because it helps from the first idea all the way to the final distribution. And they've empowered us because we watch our participants barely spell VR to at the end they're talking about how they're going to design the world. And some of them already designed worlds and used it as a way to work on the book and the story while simultaneously building their brand.

And you've seen in some of their pitches, some ideas that have been germinating through the last 2 weeks from our experimentation and our learning from them, um, finding new ways to use this XR and all the incredible new stuff that's coming up and new being the prerogative word here. There are, uh, it, it's very experimental. Some of it right now, but we want to continue doing it because we've had enough success that we know that these, these mediums are not only going to be adjuncts and ways to create product, but they also will eventually be ways to be monetized product and get more of these diverse stories out there.

And on that note, it is time to go back and talk to everybody and see— oh, I skipped the—

Yeah, you skipped one thing, but that's okay.

Which is, if you wanna join us, you can help support Apples and Oranges Arts. I'm terrible at the donation thing, but yes, there it is.

Go for it.

I'm more excited to hear about the team. So let's go in and let's find out what our judges have to say, Carol.

All right, so we're gonna divide up those dollars, judges, and remember everybody, this is all done in fun and celebration of these wonderful creatives and their incredible work. So we will start first off with our friend Jason.

As an alum, no one's going home empty-handed. For 5 of the projects, I will give you 10 cents each. I just want to say, this entire group, you all a social justice component that can be highlighted in your stories, and you should carry that with you because it's really important in this day and age. A special shout out to Jalen and Truth because I really want you to make that happen. So for Consoling Mechanism, Absolute Zero, Whisper Darkly, Shapeshifters, and Seeds, you each get 10 cents. Alice in Wonderland, you check off a lot of boxes. Your team is extremely talented and you're diverse. Your production team is also diverse. You have a cast that centers itself around people of color. It's very commercial and VR is an essential part of your plot as well as a part of your design. So 50 cents goes to Alice in Wonderland.

Wonderful. Thank you, Jason. Frank, are you ready for your tally? Excellent.

Hey, as usual, I mean, it's great to see this stuff. These presentations in particular were excellent. The way you brought them forward is almost like watching commercials versus— I remember in the old days when I was young, that was never true, but just seeing the progress, the whole thing has been great. I'm gonna go 10 cents for Alice in Wonderland, just because I really like the feel, the components. And I think there's something there, but I'm not smart enough to know what. I'm sorry, I'm calling it Manhattan, even though I know it's not called Manhattan. I am gonna go with 30 cents there. And then I'm going to throw 60 Sense at Seeds, and I think all really compelling out there. But the excitement you guys all brought to this was compelling, and, and I keep being amazed at how these presentations have, to use Calvin and Hobbes' word, transmogrified over time. So thank you.

Thank you, Frank. You've been here since the beginning, and we so appreciate you. Next, Sierra.

I, um, first, just a huge congratulations. I mean, so much innovation today, and my dollar is not reflective of anything other than the combination, the plan, the representation, the story that's being told. I sort of had to mash all those things together. So with that said, I'm gonna do 5 cents each. Let me make sure I have my math right. Right, to Seeds, Whisper Darkly, and Absolute Zero. I'm gonna do 25 cents to Alice's Wonderland and The Consoling Mechanism, and 35 cents to Shapeshifters. For those 3, I just felt like all the parts were working together really, really well. So congratulations everyone, it was an amazing day.

Thank you so much, Sierra. And next up we have Alani.

Yeah, I'm going to go with 10 cents each for Alice's Wonderland, the Consoling Mechanism, and Absolute Zero. I love the pitches for all of these. For Alice's Wonderland, I like really love the adaptation. I think that's like super duper cool. I like also the opportunity that if you're going to turn that into a video game, maybe look at Kingdom of Hearts. Hearts in terms of like how to do an RPG. And then Consoling Mechanism, I just really loved like the emotion of the music. That was really beautiful. And then with Absolute Zero, the opportunity to expand your distribution channels excites me. I'm going to go 20 cents each for Whisper Darkly and Seeds. For Whisper Darkly, like, you know, I'm a sucker for immersive historical stories.

I wonder why.

You had me at hello. So that's really dope. I also, when you were talking about the historical space, the spaces that the venues that you can go into from Deborah's question, I was thinking about like historical spaces that aren't being in use that you could look into as well. And then with Seeds, you know, I just really love like the message and the brand engagement along with the fact that like an animated musical, like, yeah, you know, I'm a Lion King baby, of course. And then I'm going to go 30 cents to the Shapeshifters. Love the story. Love the message. You know, I was getting misty sitting there and watching, you know, the story take place. And I just love the fact that you are illuminating the human experience in such an amazing way. So great job, everyone.

Great feedback, Alani. Thank you so much. And next up, David, what's your tally, please?

Well, it was an amazing set of productions, and I can only imagine pulling together these presentations after you've done all the rest of that work, so congratulations. And I will say, so I sit on the board of GLAAD, and I have to say that it is incredible to see these stories that are really encompassing, and I think as you look at what's— what has been interesting looking at this, the data about how younger people today think about gender and sexuality, it's really— I think that these stories are really embracing the broader, the broader community. So that's going to be amazing. I gave, I gave 10 cents to, to Shapeshifters, Alice's Wonderland, Whisper Darkly, and the consoling mechanism. I wish I had more. I think that as a venture capitalist, I'll just have to raise more dollars to give—

or put some more zeros on there.

I think that was unfair to give me only a dollar, but I appreciate that. Each one had pieces that were super compelling, and I'm excited about but I gave 30 cents to Seeds and to Absolute Zero in part because I was really engaged in the sort of unique feel and look and sound and approach that each took to their genre and to their storytelling. And so, you know, look, these are really in the beginnings of process, but But I'm excited to see all of these musicals and musical experiences develop. So congratulations, congratulations to all of you.

Thank you, David, and thank you so much for joining us and being a first-timer here. We so appreciate you and your feedback. It's, it's just wonderful. And next up, we have Robert.

Thank you. Kudos to everyone. I loved all of the creativity and the quality of the presentations. By far the best that I've seen after attending several of these now, and I greatly appreciate the challenges of collaboration that I'm sure everybody had during this time. And I think most importantly, I love the ways that all the traditional forms of theater are being pushed forward and redefined. It's not even pushing it to its boundaries, it's beyond its boundaries, which I think is so important to the future of the art form, and it's going to help so much as the world returns to whatever the new normal is there. A few clicked with me more personally than others did, but overall you all did great. I'm going to do 5 cents to both Shapeshifters and Seeds, 10 cents to Absolute Zero: The Consoling Mechanism and Whisper Darkly, and 60 cents to Alice's Wonderland, which I would buy tickets to tomorrow.

Fantastic. All right, Cindy, you're up.

I was so impressed my first time. Wow, this is great. I've heard so much about it, Tim and Pamela. Congratulations to you and all the help that you're giving these amazing artists and such. Um, I'm going to give 10 cents each to Seeds, Absolute Zero, and the Consoling Mechanism. I will give 20 cents to Alice Alice, and then 25 cents to Whisper Darkly and Shapeshifter, maybe because I just see them to be the most marketable.

Makes sense. Thank you so much, Cindy. Love having you here. I'm enjoying your portrait behind you as well.

Mr. Toad!

All right, because we all go a little crazy.

Ah, that's, that's definitely needed, isn't it?

It has been a wild ride. It has.

Rowan, can you tell us your tally, please?

I sure can, and congrats everybody having done this freshly. I know your heads have been packed full of stuff and then you have to put together a presentation. You guys were super sharp and it was really well done. Um, so that said, I gave 5 cents each to Seeds and Consoling Mechanism. I thought the music was beautiful. I love what you guys are doing. 10 cents to Alice's Wonderland. That's obviously a product that's ready to go, so I just, I had to put a dime in on that. I mean, come on. Um, and then I gave 15 cents each to Shapeshifters and Absolute Zero. Um, I echo what everybody said about Shapeshifters, and I love that there's, there's clearly an audience for that show. And most importantly, there's the chance to broaden that audience, which is what's so important. Um, and Absolute Zero, I think I think it's dope that you have like literally a strong female lead and not have it be in the context of homophobia and coming up against, like Jason, it was a great question. And I love that you guys are thinking about that for sequels. Cause I think it's cool to just actually remove all of that stuff and just let there be like a super awesome strong female lead, not in the lens of like anything else. So I think that's super cool. So, and then I gave the bulk of my investment to Whisper Darkly cause you had me at Freehoo. And I thought, I thought your ask was really specific and really clear, and I see what you're looking for. And again, obviously, like, like Ilani, I'm very partial to fully immersive musicals and just can see that, just excited about that. So that's what I did.

Awesome. Thank you, Rowan. And lastly, we have Deborah.

Okay.

Usually I'm first, so thanks, Thanks for making me laugh. I just want to say quickly to everyone, and ditto what everyone else is saying, this is an incredible group. I got to meet you all last week and I got a great sense of who you all are, what your show is, where you're going, and what you want out of every single one of these pitches. And that's the most important thing is to make sure that everybody understands what your show is and what you want. I would travel on every one of these projects if I could with all of you. Much like David said, I need more money. You know, I'm always—

I need more money.

I need more money.

So I'm trying to do this and give you a few couple of notes here. Consulting mechanism and shapeshifters. I love the messaging behind this. There's wonderful opportunities here. I think there's a partnership with, as you all suggested, with the nonprofit genre track rather, and a commercial track. So I would encourage both of you to explore those. So I'm gonna give 15% of my dollar, I'm gonna split it between consulting mechanism Consoling Mechanisms, I'm sorry, and Shapeshifters. I'm going to give 20% of my dollar— I'm going in percentages, sorry— to Whisper. I think this is a great project. I think there's lots of opportunity here. So I'm giving 20% to you. I'm giving 50%— I'm splitting it between Alice and Zero. Love the female focus here. The female coder in Alice, just the whole— the music was fantastic. Zero Absolute Zero, I don't know if I would call your lead a dope female lead, but Ron, I love that phrase. And so I feel the same. Those two, Alice and Zero, I think there's great potential there, and I love the female-centricness to them. And as a commercial producer, I'm really looking at this as where can I get engaged to help the product move forward as quickly and as successfully as possible. So that's part of my thinking in this. And SEEDS, I love what you guys are doing, and I would have given you a little bit more, but I was a little bit concerned about all the other attachments that you've indicated are already part of SEEDS. But I'd love to continue the conversation, and so you get 15%. And I know Tim's over there going, okay, hopefully Ito's doing that.

I will tell you, I'm not doing it, but I'm watching the spreadsheet and it just keeps getting changed.

Percent? Okay.

Well, because then you say I've given 15% to 2 shows, so then they're saying, well, is that 7.5% to each show or is it 15%?

It sounds better.

It just sounds better. So So there you go.

Well, thank you. Thank you, Deborah. It's always a pleasure to work with you. And Deborah also helped us in the selection process of these incredible shows. And I couldn't be prouder in our end result with all of you here today. And we— do we have our totals?

We— I see the spreadsheet still bouncing around.

We'll give them a moment.

It looks like a close little race where we have of our— looks like Alice barely took it, and it's a very, very even spread, I must say, though. And echoing everybody else, this, this is really difficult to do. I've obviously thought about different ways that we can do this, but it's— you gotta— most importantly, you all got just an amazing amount of feedback. More people are now seeing your messaging And I'll tell you, from Jason can attest, how was the difference between last Friday and today?

Huge, huge, such great progress. Um, everybody did such a great job. I, Deborah and I are both like thrilled at what happened over the weekend. You must not have been sleeping.

No, there hasn't been a whole lot of sleep over these last 2 weeks, but it has been amazing. And I'd like to turn it back over to Pamela now.

Well, we just want to bring everybody back up and give a big thank you to our behind the scenes, but never just more important than Tim and I are our team that have helped us create this program and work it and put in a lot of hours to create it. So thank you, Christopher Sepulveda. Thank you, Ali Rice. And thank you, Ito Gao. As well for all your hard, hard work. It's all paid off. And to your— to the audience, and thank you so much for tuning in again if it's been a multiple thing that you like to check out all of these new shows with us. We are incredibly proud of every single one of our teams here. And please stay in touch. You can watch this again. It will live on our website. So if you have other people to share with, please do. And stay in touch with us through our channel. And thank you all and goodbye.

Thanks all.

Thank you.

Congratulations.