Sing Tank Live - THEatre ACCELERATOR Spring 2020 Cohort

Hello, I am Pamela Winslow Kashani, and I'm here with Tim Kashani. Welcome! We are the co-founders of Apples and Oranges, and we are happy that you are here to join us for Sing Tank, where 9 of our Theater Accelerator teams will pitch their wonderful original musicals to our friendly sharks, or judges, from the theater industry and beyond. And it is all done in fun, and we're so glad that you are joining us. Today ends our 9th Theater Accelerator program. It's a 2-week virtual classroom 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. We founded Apples and Oranges in 2008, and since that time, through our studio's for-profit side, we have produced the Broadway shows Hair, Memphis, and American in Paris, and the film stage musicals Emma and No One Called Ahead. And on the nonprofit arts side, we produced Arts Coast to Coast, our PBS show highlighting arts programs big and small, Bridge to Broadway, where we partnered with schools to develop new works. Showbiz U, our educational online portal. 6 years of filming and live streaming of the National High School Musical Theatre, or Jimmy Awards. And since 2016, our Theatre Accelerator program, which brings you today's Sing Tank.

And when we started Theatre Accelerator, the goal was to make it virtual, blending the best of Silicon Valley and Broadway. And with our evangelizing of new streams of musicals, all of a sudden we became more relevant. We can't have a show like this without talking about what we're all going through right now, which is the current shutdown of our live art form. But we are not going to let that stop us. In fact, once this happened, we looked in the mirror and said, well, what can we do to help? Since our mission statement has always been to look at alternate means of distribution for all of our stories and our artists. And now it's just expanded. And since that point, we've looked at different aspects of our industries to see how we can keep both the creative as well as the distribution process working and connecting with audiences all over the globe. We were about to launch an in-person live reading when we pulled the plug and said, let's do it all on Zoom. And this was a show that came through our Theatre Accelerator class. And on March 20th, we did our first Zoom 29-hour read, and not only was it amazing for us, it was fantastic to be working and paying actors in a time when everything was shut down. We then partnered with the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, which we've been members of for many years, to get all of our regional theatres together to run a webinar just to talk about the challenges. After that, we tried a virtual gala. We had never had a gala at Apples and Oranges Arts, and we said, let's put it online. And it was absolutely amazing. We had live performers from our theater accelerator, as well as the virtual toasts and live auctions. And the best part of the evening was the virtual valet line where everybody stuck around and shared stories. We then created a 1-week class, Kyle Wright and I from the Shubert Organization, called Digitizing the Fourth Wall, where we worked with the regional theaters around around the globe who were now shut down. And at this time we were thinking, well, maybe we'll come back over the summer, but let's actually create a plan in that week for what 2020 looks like fully virtualized. And it was truly a heartwarming experience because we had people coming in at all different levels of theater size, but all facing the same problem, which is everything that they had been working on for months to years had now been shut down. In fact, next week we're going to get together with that same group, and we'll tease you with a little note coming later on that. We've created a bunch of tutorials online to help people to use Zoom and to use other aspects of technology that we're giving away, and we've run a concert, and we are testing every aspect of singing live. That way we can beat it up ourselves to see what works, what doesn't, how do we fix latency, all of the above. And just not even a couple weeks ago, we worked with Curtain Call, one of the companies that have come through our Broadway Tech Accelerator, to stage a fully live play with the actors that you see on this poster on a Tom Stoppard play. And what was very important on that one is we sold tickets to it, and all the profits ended up going to the Felix Project, which is a food bank. But we wanted to show that we can do theater. Online. It's not the same as live, but it is something that will keep us moving and going and creating. And we had people who were paying for it and enjoying the whole experience, and it was all on Zoom. And our director Sam Yates created this cool environment where the actors were morphing in and out in the same way you would enter and exit the stage. And that brings us to today, where we are now on our Theatre Accelerator. And during our Theater Accelerator time, we also took one of the films that we made, Emma the Musical, and we launched that live so that our cohorts could see something that we had created digitally up on YouTube as an educational experience for us to see how we are streaming a number of different pieces in the world today. And that takes us to our mission of fully virtualizing the theatrical process. Everything from first pen on paper all the way to a full production. And that will live on long past this pandemic as a way to help more stories, and we believe will further the want and need for live theater.

How can you help us? In a very simple way, you can simply go right below to your subscribe button on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel. That way you'll be in the loop for all of our incredible content coming forward. And if you want to donate, please go to our website, nycoc.org/donate. Thank you.

All right, I think it's time for the main event, don't you?

Yes, absolutely. Tim, why don't you explain what's going to happen today?

Sure. We are going to have fun first and foremost because everything that we do here is in joy and in love. And these participants that you are about to see have spent two incredibly fun and difficult weeks taking their shows and dividing them up in the first week and looking at themselves as if they are entrepreneurs who had just been accepted into a Silicon Valley startup. They look through the lens of the creative entrepreneur and producer. And from that point, then they got into the creative aspect of their story in the second weeks. We have 9 amazing mentor/judges who are going to be watching these presentations that are going to be 5 minutes in length. At the end of each presentation, we will have 5 minutes of Q&A, and that will be followed by the virtual investment of $1, one virtual dollar that is, by our judges.

And without further ado, we have an illustrious panel of judges we'd like to let you meet. First off, we have founder of Fire Muse Productions, She has received many Tony Awards and nominations for numerous Broadway shows, including Hamilton, Ain't Too Proud, and An American in Paris. Our colleague and friend, Deborah Barrera.

Hi guys, nice to see you. Thanks for having me here today.

Great to see you.

Thanks for joining us. Next up, we have Alice Brooks, our friend and colleague. And Alice is a cinematographer who you saw the film Emma And Alice was our cinematographer for Emma. And Alice is also the upcoming cinematographer for the movie In the Heights. She's also done Home Before Dark and The LXD, and she is happy to be here and has been a mentor in prior classes.

Hi, I'm so excited to be with you guys today.

Thank you.

Thanks, Alex— Alice. Next, we have Arvind Eapen David. He's the producer of "The Infidel," both the musical and the film, a lead producer on Broadway's "Jagged Little Pill," writer on "Anansi Boys" for Amazon, co-creator, showrunner of "Knights of the Borrowed," and producer of 8 feature films. Welcome, Arvind.

Hello, nice to be here.

Up now we have Diksha Gaur. Diksha is the co-founder and CEO of ShowScore, the online fan community that helps audience discover and enjoy theater. Formerly, she was in senior marketing and PR positions at the Woolly Mammoth Company, Two River Theater Company, and the Long Wharf Theater. Hello, Deeksha, and thanks for joining us.

Hello, everyone, and break a leg to all the artists.

Awesome.

Thank you, Deeksha. Next up, we have Frank Cavanaugh, investor and producer and executor of operational management for major corporations, including Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard. He is the founder of Fort Ashford Investments, a 9-time SingTank judge, and Tim's college bestie. Welcome, Frank.

Thank you for having me again. Always fun.

Perfect. And fellow on the VC line is our investor side. We have Jonathan Leden, who who actually began his career as a stage manager and then said, I like the other side of the table too. And he went, got his MBA and became the Chief Operating Officer of Citadel Global Equities. And currently he is also the President of the Board of the Orlando Ballet and most importantly, our neighbor in Golden Oak, Florida. So welcome, Jonathan.

Thank you, Tim.

Hi, everybody.

Great to have you, Jonathan. Next, we have Brian Morland. He is a New York City-based creative Broadway producer whose credits include The Lifespan of a Fact, Sea Wall: A Life, and the upcoming American Buffalo with Sam Rockwell and Blue, directed by Phylicia Rashad. Welcome, Brian.

Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for having me. Good luck, all.

Thank you, Brian. And last and certainly not least, a partner in crime in all of these endeavors for us is Kyle Wright. Kyle and I founded the Broadway Tech Accelerator together in partnership with his organization, the Shubert.org. He's also the director of Audience Connect and the, the Audience Connect vertical for Telecharge.com. And he has been our mentor throughout this process. We always have one mentor who sees them on their first Friday and gives some constructive feedback. So he will, he will be talking about some of the improvements that have come because it's always improvements. It never goes any, any other way than that.

Well, what else could I say? You've taken it all out of my mouth, Tim. Hello everybody, looking forward to this. Um, love working with Tim and Pamela. This is a really great program and I've been blown away getting to— I've been privileged enough to sit in on a lot of the workshops and it's just, it's fantastic. So I can't wait to see the latest pitch. Good luck, everybody.

Thank you, Kyle.

It's such a pleasure to work with you as always. And now it is time for the really fun part where we all get to see the birth of these shows live on YouTube. And without further ado, we're gonna start off with our first creator, Sam Sultan, and his show, Saint Stephen and the Children's Crusade.

How much would you risk to follow your friends? Saint Stephen and the Children's Crusade, a historical adventure musical based on true events, explores the meaning and power of friendship. It features a cast of young actors.

Young actors like me. Like me.

Like me.

Like me.

Like me.

Like me.

Like me.

Like me, Stephen, a young boy living in 13th century rural France, yearns for a better life for himself and his best friends, Hugo and Emmeline.

On Stephen's 12th birthday, he has a vision that shakes his small world.

With the belief that he must change his life for the good of the world, he convinces his friends to join him on a pilgrimage.

Stephen and his friends venture forth on a perilous journey, eventually adding thousands of children to their ranks. While their noble endeavors may lead to adventure and glory, it may also destroy the very friendships that Steven treasures most.

<LYRICS>Saint, Saint, Saint Steven. Even if we die, at least we're trying something new. Ooh, Saint, Saint, Saint Steven. Believing in temptation and danger.</LYRICS> Hello everybody, I'm Sam Sultan.

I wrote the book, music, and lyrics for Saint Stephen and the Children's Crusade. I'm also an educator, and those young actors you saw in the video are the reason that I wrote this story, not only to reflect what I already see in their generation, but to empower them on and off of the stage. I want to create material worthy of their intelligence and passion and kindness. As an educator in the field, I found there's a shortage of musical material for young actors that rises to this challenge. So Saint Stephen is created to feature a diverse cast that allows all of our audiences to fully see themselves represented in this story. The story is driven by young people, but even those who cannot be trusted, that is to say, over 30, like me, will still connect with its core message about the power of friendship. My best friend lives 2,000 miles away in Los Chiles, Costa Rica, and working on St. Stephen has been a reminder each and every day how lucky we are anytime we can stand next to our friends. It's safe to say that between March for Our Lives, the Women's March, Black Lives Matter, Climate Strike, virtually all of my students have taken to the streets at some point in the past 4 years. And they don't go alone. They do it together. They go with friends. So let's talk about what Saint Stephen is now and its possibilities moving forward. Saint Stephen is a completed stage musical. It has received 2 partial workshops in New York through Theatrical Resources Unlimited and has begun remotely recording a concept album. It is ultimately targeted towards schools and youth theater programs. There are over 25,000 schools in the U.S. that have theater programs and thousands of more youth theaters. So our next step is focusing on a graphic novel adaptation that takes the book from the musical, enhances it, and also incorporates the music and lyrics from the show as well. We can do this starting now, like right now, and now is a very strange, admittedly, and important time to create art. Having a larger universe and known brand will help Saint Stephen find a home on a live stage when that is possible. Graphic novel audiences are young, and the market has increased between 10 and 20% each year for the last decade or so. And the audience aligns very well with this show as is. Here are some character sketches, and we'll be talking more about our aesthetic right now. What sets Saint Stephen aside and makes it immediately recognizable in all of its forms is its anachronistic aesthetic. It's what happens when you take a medieval manuscript and you mix it with a Tumblr account and the doodles that you make in your notebook when you're supposed to be taking notes in class. So let's talk that next step. The next step is a pilot chapter of this graphic novel, about 30 pages in length, consisting of the first scene, which includes 2 songs. We're asking for an investment of $10,000 to create this pilot chapter. That budget is broken down below. In addition to the graphic novel, we're asking for $2,500 to have our fully orchestrated concept album mixed and mastered, and another $500 for various video and graphic design needs to complete an electronic press kit. Okay, thank you so much for your time, and I'm going to let the next generation take it from here.

So no matter if you're a child or a child at heart, join the crusade because friends don't leave their friends behind.

Friends don't leave their friends behind. Friends don't leave their friends behind.

Friends don't leave friends behind. Friends don't leave their friends behind.

Hey, we are Bound Paws Multi-Coring. We sing from days of yore. We're about to write our story.

Come along and join our corps.

Okay, taking questions.

Thank you, Sam.

Great job, Sam.

Thanks so much.

Let's have our Our judges, turn on your cameras, please, and let's open it up for some questions. We've got 5 minutes, so take it away, illustrious panel.

Who's going to dare to ask the first question?

I'm happy to go first. That was fun. Well done. I have 2 questions. One's about the story and creative, and the other is about your investment ask. The creative story is how— what's the role— I like the central idea of friends don't leave friends behind and trusting your friends. What are you doing with the religion in the original story? How is that dealt with?

Sure. So the religion definitely takes a major backseat in the story. It is not a story about religion. The words God and Jesus come up very briefly. Very sporadically in the script. It really truly is about friendship and adventure.

Cool.

And then my business question was, why a graphic novel? And I'll say, look, I'm a graphic novelist, so it's a world I know and understand. But the relationship between graphic novel and theater and musical theater is a slightly tangential one. Why is it useful? To spend $10,000 on a graphic novel?

Sure, absolutely, good question. So the first reason really is because I feel that this particular story— there are a few things that in the stage musical are a little hard to explore. The fact that this is an event that involves 30,000 people is sometimes not well represented on a stage, but in graphic form is very well suited. It's also something that as I've looked for inspiration in illuminated manuscripts from the 13th century, the first thing that I saw when I opened up an illuminated manuscript was, oh, this is a graphic novel. And so that's really what drew me to that form.

But is it designed—

Sorry, Arvind, we're going to go to another judge. We've got a lot of questions in only 5 minutes. Frank?

Sure, two quick questions. I'll ask them both, you can answer. So I lost the story concept, and I have really no idea what the story is per se. So that would be part of my concern. The second thing is, why the religious component? Because if anything, it seems like it's going to mislead one audience and piss off another. And when you put up St. Stephen's and progressive and talk about four marches, where children pretty much are being pulled out of school or other things like that, won't that lead to some dissension in whatever investor base or audience you're seeking? Thanks.

Sure.

Great questions. So Saint Stephen, even though it's not a musical that's about religion, is certainly something that anyone, regardless of their faith or lack of faith, can walk into and connect with in the same way that secular and non-secular audiences can walk into a Jesus Christ Superstar and/or a Sister Act and enjoy and connect with the material.

Okay, next question. Jonathan, please.

Sam, I thought your video was quite good. It was quite creative and a little written-out piece and well produced, so congratulations on that. Just to try to maybe repeat Frank's question a little bit, but You said the audience is 11 to 29, progressive, political, and creative. Like, that seems like you're really micro-targeting a demographic. And since my archetype is the judging panel is the grumpy old capitalist, they don't have a lot of money for tickets. So how do you think about that?

Sure.

While that's our target audience, it is by no means the only people who will be interested in the show. That's sort of our tightest concentric circle layer of audience goers. But it is certainly something that will speak to a larger group of people.

And Diksha, you had a question.

Sam, I'm curious about how you're thinking about distribution for the graphic novel. If it's sort of supporting the musical piece, how are you really thinking about getting it out into the world?

Sure, so we've been looking at a lot of apps that are becoming more popular for the distribution of both comics and graphic novels that are looking into things like downward scrolling, which is sort of a new innovation in comics. But it is possible that if we are integrating music into the product, that we're going to have to sort of create a different means of distribution for it. And there have been lots of graphic novels that contain animation or music that have released apps that are just an app unto themselves. And Diksha, I'm a very big fan of ShowScore. I'm gonna humble brag and say that I was on the leaderboard for the, I think, 2019 season. Very low on the 100 top leaderboard, but on there.

Amazing, thank you. Well, that is a great way to then close out your section, Sam. Thank you very, very much. Judges, you can go ahead and turn off your videos now while we bring up our next participant, please.

Yes, thank you, Sam. And I'm very happy to now introduce you to our next two creatives. We have Hanako Greensmith and Sandra Ukoboyejo with their show Halona and Ophelia.

Hi there. So nice to meet you guys. I'm Hanako.

Hi, and I'm Sandra, and this is our show, Halona and Ophelia.

My home, my kingdom. The world was quiet.

The gods were quiet.

Everything fell to a hush. All but the sound of burning.

Burning. Burning.

But each day began. And returned. As it always had. And always will. Halona Jackman of the Jackman Kingdom is accustomed to a peaceful life. Until a member of the neighboring Sinclair Kingdom unceremoniously murders her father, breaking the treaty that had once declared them as allies. With the treaty now broken, their land that was once lush with forest and wildlife is scorched to the ground. While the Sinclairs dine, the Jackmans starve.

12 years later, Hollona declares war against the Sinclairs in the name of vengeance and vows to stop at nothing.

Be the woman you expect me to be, whose life drowns in the sea.

Not I.

No, I won't be the one who does not take control of her life. For the world is dark, the world is wild.

There's evil that lurks behind every creek.

The world cares not, the world is cruel, and it's cruelest to those who are weak. Let us champion this princess!

She discovers success quickly but is soon faced with an entirely different challenge: Ophelia Sinclair. Ophelia was once Helona's dear friend and lover, but being the daughter of her father's murderer, is declared the enemy.

With time, both heroines are forced to acknowledge the heartbreak that drew them apart, and in doing so, recover their lost romance and unite in their cause to bring about peace. Though their kingdoms were entirely different, Their core values were not. Each heroine makes a life-altering sacrifice in the name of her future, teaching us the lesson that it's not what you run from, but what you run to.

Hi, I'm Hanako.

And hey, I'm Sandra.

We met at Pace University while we were attaining our BFAs in musical theater, but became best friends when we were paired in a writing class together. We decided that as multifaceted women of color, we were determined to bring a version of our world onto the stage. Stories that highlight powerful, colorful, LGBTQ-inclusive, female-driven casts.

Both of us are the daughters of immigrants. The sacrifice of an immigrant parent is one that includes risks as they venture into unknown territory for the sake of providing opportunities for their loved ones. Similarly to Halona, we relate to the pressure of leaving a mark on the world, especially when much was sacrificed to afford you those possibilities.

But like Halona, we have learned learned and continue to learn that the mark you leave behind is something authentic and individual to your own path.

Heavily inspired by nature's elements, our show provides a contrasting array of material. Our music, movement, and story are a blend of fluid motions and melodies as well as fiery song and atmosphere, creating a modern take on traditional storytelling. Whether with a cast of 10 or a cast of 50, a 5-piece band or a full orchestra, optics and spectacle are not necessary to capture the heart of our piece.

It was an honor to be selected as a Pace New Musical in 2018 and bring our vision of an all-femme cast to life. One standout moment was the praise of the musical theater idol, Björk Lee. We're very excited by the idea of utilizing projection mapping to tie in technology with our piece, enhancing the magic of the elements. But with the reality of COVID-19 and a stage production not being in the near future, our initial hopes of creating our story into a film or limited series have also been become more realistic and something we're very interested in looking into.

So as you can tell, this has been quite the journey for Hanako and myself. Our show came to be in 2016, and since then we've had the opportunity to showcase our material on stages such as 54 Below and Shaberly Studios. As mentioned earlier, we are actors first, and in 2018 we graduated and began working as actors, as I found myself in Hamilton and Hanako found herself filming for Chicago Fire. We were simultaneously performing and writing and plan on continuing to do so. So what does our 2020 and beyond look like for us? Hanako, let 'em know.

Thanks, Ange.

Regarding the short term, we'd love to host Zoom readings with our friends in the industry as well as complete a demo and further flesh out our piece. But in order to meet our short-term and long-term goals, we'd want to compensate everyone fairly. This is why we're asking for financial backing through a producer. This way we'd be able to meet our short-term goals and continue on to our long-term goals, which include developing and securing securing a creative team, fully realizing our show, and exploring the prospects of our show to screen.

With the many phases our show will undergo, we hope to continue to use our voice to honor those who inspired us to write "Helona and Ophelia" in the first place.

Thank you for taking the time to consider our beloved show.

<LYRICS>I'm making one vow.</LYRICS> Thank you so much for watching, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you both.

Very well done.

Now let's open it up for some questions.

Yes, question. Hi ladies, wonderful job. I absolutely love this concept. Um, the blending of those worlds and those mediums is absolutely Amazing.

Thank you.

So you were talking about bringing the story from show to screen. Are you primarily interested in the screen version of it so you can really blend those elements? Or are you primarily interested in the stage version in an expanded way, à la something as large-scale as a Phantom of the Opera or a Rebecca or something of that particular nature in scale and scope?

Sandra, you want to take this?

Sure.

Honestly, I think we're interested in both prospects. When we initially started this, we wanted to see this on stage, and we we were lucky enough to have that staged reading. But with the realities of COVID-19, we have been thinking about adapting it to the screen as well. I don't believe our worlds would be too different, as Hanako mentioned, with the projection mapping and the use of these magical elements. Our worlds would actually mimic one another. It's more so a question of how to get this show to other people and less so how different the show would look on different platforms.

Thank you, ladies.

Thank you.

Deborah.

Hi guys. In full disclosure, I have to share with everyone that I've been, albeit on the sidelines, a part of the pitching process in these last 2 weeks. So I just wanted to commend the 2 of you and, and say you did a great job with the pitch. It's wonderful. Congratulations.

Thank you.

I'm just curious if you, if you wouldn't mind talking a little bit about the fundamentals and the foundation of the book. I know that Brian asked a great question about, do you see this more going along screen side or stage side? But where do you both feel like you are? You have wonderful careers as actresses.

You're—

I have no doubt you're going to shine in all different genres. But where do you feel the book is right now? And where do you want to put your focus on the actual material and the script and the development of the characters in that script?

Yeah, I would say Sandra and I pride ourselves in really sharing so much of the material together, and we also really pride ourselves in that our piece, although it is a musical, we really feel like it is a play with music. There's a huge importance between the dialogue between all of the characters. We think that really fleshes out the characters and somehow makes them more realistic in such a heightened world. So yeah, so when we were thinking of translating it to screen, we think keeping that dialogue in there is incredibly crucial and something we're definitely continuing on, even though yes, we are actors, but we love writing and would not abandon this piece at any time in the near future.

Yeah, and to piggyback off of what Hanako said, as actors and, you know, being in musicals ourselves, we see there is such an emphasis on music, but we really pride ourselves in making sure the book could stand on its own and allowing us to see that musical theater actors can also stand as purely actors.

And how large—

just last question, Tim— how large do you see this cast?

What are the parameters, minimal and maximum?

Go ahead, Sanjay.

OK.

I think a minimum would be about 10 characters, and maximum would be about 50. It could be as large as West Side, where you really do create the world and the opposing sides. But depending on the scale of where it's being presented, we're able to adjust our band and our people as well.

Yeah, all right, thank you. Thank you, Frank.

I agree, amazing presentation. How much are you looking for? That, that was the part that didn't come across to me, right?

Yeah, so I think for the time being we're looking at it quite primarily short-term, especially with COVID-19 going on. So right now we're looking for just enough to really compensate our actors that will be doing the Zoom readings with us. So somewhere around $5,000 that we could pay them and get some demos down so we could really feel comfortable with the music that we'd want to officially pitch when we're more comfortable with the whole show in the future post-readings. Tondra, anything you wanna add to that?

Just adding that we also have an orchestrator, Solomon Hoffman. So he is someone we'd want to include as well as far as compensating. But yeah, agree with you completely. Solomon, our actors, to really flesh out this demo and have that created to give out to different platforms.

Yeah, platform. Yeah. All right, we have time for one more question.

I saw Arvind.

Arvind, you're up.

Yeah, that was super fun and lots of inspiring elements there. I am confused by the idea that it could equally happily be a film or a musical next. As someone who has made a bunch of both, things sort of have to start somewhere and have to be written to something.

Yeah, right.

And I just sort of heard you, obviously COVID complicates the world in all sorts of ways, but it complicates the world for film and TV production as well. And so I wouldn't think of that as an easy first route. Right.

Yeah.

Sandra, do you want to take that?

Yeah, I would just like to say, of course we've been writing for the stage, so primarily the stage stage is where we live, it's where the show lives. But similarly to one time when we were at Pace, Michael John LaChiusa was our artist-in-residence and we all got to watch Hello Again, and it basically was a filmed adaptation of his musical. So something along those lines doesn't seem too far from where we're heading as well. So we'd love to still incorporate the music in the film adaptation.

And to piggyback off of that too, I don't think we're like trying to replace the idea of it being a stage musical in the time of COVID-19. Right now we have more of obviously the musical established, so we also would love to bring on creatives that could help us with the screen adaptation because obviously we grew up doing musical theater and studying musical theater, but we are passionate about TV and film. So getting some more insight on that so we could make a script that we're proud of so that once COVID-19, hopefully when everything kind of starts to open back up again, we could have those conversations a little more fully.

So well done, Sandra.

Thank you so much.

Enjoy that.

And then we're gonna move on to our next team.

All right, so our judges can turn off their mics, bring up our next team.

Wonderful. So on deck we have Mallory Ortega and Steve Greist with The Girl Who Left Home.

Hello everyone, I'm Mallory Ortega, the book writer and lyricist.

And I am Steve Greist, the other lyricist, and our project is called The Girl Who Left Home.

My parents are very traditional, conservative Catholic Filipinos who pressured me to take over the family restaurant, and I felt like they tried to shape me into versions of them while, while my friends pursued their dreams of music and acting, and I thought, why can't I do that? Why won't my parents allow me to chase my dreams? And so I went against the grain, and I chased my dreams, and I left home to attend the Film and TV Production MFA program at USC. This is where I met Steve and our composer Alex Winkler. But in my parents' eyes, I was the girl who left home. After a few years, I began to wonder what would happen if I had to go home, forget my dreams, and take over the family restaurant. I questioned my parents' actions, my own actions, all of our fights and our conflicting views of the world. And I finally came to understand the value of my family and what they did to provide for me. And I came to accept my roots and I learned that that's how you can truly grow. This realization inspired The Girl Who Left Home. Here's our trailer of our feature film version.

I'm working at the restaurant tomorrow. I'm sorry, Christine. I came here to evict you. If we don't give him a month and a half of rent, it's over. There's a saying in the Philippines: where there's life, there still lies hope.

Well, maybe this is what I'm supposed to do, fulfill my parents' legacy.

Christine Noble, that's always been It's been your dream to be on stage. You can't just let that go. And now, are you going to stay?

The Girl Who Left Home is a contemporary Asian American musical like La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen with the heart and family values of Moana. Our show is based off the film version of the script. About 4 years ago, it was clear that no one was going to give time and day to our first-time feature director with a Filipino-American musical dramedy. I took matters into my own hands, started my own company, and our team fundraised for over two—

So go ahead and take it and go ahead and start it up again, please.

Filipino-American musical dramedy. I took matters into my own hands, started my own company, and our team fundraised for over two years. We had three successful crowdfunded campaigns that helped us build our audience on Facebook and Instagram. We also produced staged readings in Baltimore, DC, and New York, revising our music and script for each event, raising more seed money, earning the trust of small investors, and gaining a new community. This film represents an entire network of people who wanted this story to be told and became part of the filmmaking experience. A large-scale contemporary Asian American musical does not exist. All shows with Asian representation are historical pieces that don't show who we are today. Because of COVID there has been a rise in hate crimes in the Asian and Asian American community. This story is so important right now because it shows that we are human too. It'll be a staple in the Asian American experience. At the end of the day, we raised about $250,000 to complete this asset. Our plan was to go through film festivals before selling our film. Our film is so small that we needed the buzz to grow our audience to attain a larger sale after the circuit was over. We got into CAAM Film Festival, the largest Asian American film market in the United States, but then COVID hit. We're sad to say that our film premiere has been postponed But now we're looking into stage and digital areas to expand into other markets. Now that the entertainment world has changed, we're looking for other distribution partners while demand is high to recoup investor money. Distribution isn't just about recouping the film's budget. It's also about growing an audience for a future stage version of our story. For the rest of 2020, we want to continue development for our stage show. This includes writing new music and songs and preparing for a virtual stage reading and film sneak peek party. This event could act as a bridge between now and the in-person premiere of the movie in the coming years. We are looking for collaborators who can help us achieve these goals and navigate us through this new virtual world.

Nicely done, even with a little technical glitch. It was, it was fantastic.

And thank you.

It broke up in the middle. So since I, I know you, uh, they have the feature film done and they are working on the stage play. That's where it was hiccupping.

Gotcha.

Very impressive. Let's go to some questions. You're all digesting this wonderful story.

They're hungry.

Go.

I'll go.

Ryan, please.

I absolutely love the urgency of this story. I love the backstory as it's getting into it. I love this point of view because it's so universal and relatable that we can understand a person having a desire to move beyond where they come from. And yet have to be pulled back in the same direction at the same time. So I absolutely love that. I'm very interested in this. Is there, um, uh, how much— what happened in the cities between Baltimore, I think you also said D.C., what was the result of those developmental steps?

The Baltimore stage reading was actually our first stage read, and that's when I decided, okay, in 3 months we're gonna shoot this thing. So let's get— let's rally up the troops. And so the result of Baltimore was more of like, oh, there are some problems within the script. Okay, let's fix it. And then we started to hire some of the, you know, these were my friends from middle school and high school and college who came to help me out. It was incredible. And reconnecting with them, I was like, oh my gosh, let's work together. And so from there, we brought them to DC. and within that area of people, we— I got one of my larger investors there from like a friend of a friend who invited another friend, and it was just like that, that specific reading really opened those doors of there is a large community, and I didn't even realize it was this large, and that really propelled us to move into New York, where I finally casted two of my main leads, for the actual film, and they were able to join us for the stage reading, and really, we really had a sense of what the chemistry was going to be like with the cast and our lead producing team.

Next question, please. Diksha.

Hi, I wonder if you could sort of clarify how much you're looking to raise and what your immediate next steps would be be once you raise that capital?

So right now, because we have this film kind of sitting on a shelf, we are looking for help in distribution. Luckily, we now have attracted a sales agent, but we haven't gotten their deal just yet. So we're still, you know, my responsibility as the business owner is to recoup the investor money. So we would like to have more options and see what would be best for our film. And in the video I had mentioned that we had raised a little over or around $250,000. That film aside, for our digital virtual play and future production of a digital stage version, we're looking for between $10,000 to $15,000. However, you know, I was very fortunate to shadow Tim on one of his virtual events. And getting a sense of exactly what entails in that. You know, I'm going to be honest, I'm not 100% sure because of the scale of how many actors there are in the movie. Do I need to cut them down? Can I have an ensemble who, you know, switch characters? But just breaking down the numbers of the minimum you can pay SAG for the new media contract, it lies somewhere between $10,000 to $15,000.

Great, thank you.

All right, uh, so go ahead.

Okay, I have time for one more question. Oh, after Deborah, go right ahead.

We'll share.

Um, so first of all, great job, you guys. Um, and we've been chatting a little bit as well, and I'm, I'm so excited to see this film have its debut at the festivals, and we've, we've chatted a little bit about that. Going backwards, did you want this to be a film when you started, or did you want it to be a musical? And how much— if you move forward in the musical genre, how much music do you need, do you feel you need to continue to gather and work on before you get there?

Right. Initially, I felt that it was important to make it into a film. I felt like because I was at USC and I was graduating, I was like, I need something that I want to show my voice with. So the film was always first. But as Steve and I were collaborating with our composer, we felt like, oh, wouldn't it be nice if there was a song here? Nope, no time. Okay, move on. You know, like, let's pinpoint where we can, where we have to have music. So we always had it in our brain that if we had a staged version, this would be so much fun and we can really get in depth with the emotions of different characters than just the main one. So I feel like there is probably 3 or 4 more songs. Right now in the movie, there's only 6 and then a reprise. So there are definitely moments where we can explore deeper emotionally with the characters through song.

Music.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, we're out of time, but Brian, is it a burning question that you have?

No, I can wait. It's good.

He can wait. Okay, good.

Thank you all.

All right, well—

Thank you, you too.

Thank you, Mallory. Thank you, everybody.

And we will now move on. And we have a holiday musical coming up. Oh no, we don't. That's not yet. We have— hold that thought. We have our creator with us, Chuck Strand, to tell us all about Dorothy.

Hi everyone, I'm Chuck Strand and I wrote the book music and lyrics for Dorothy with additional material by Gene Kurdy.

We're bringing back the Voice of Broadway column.

I need the best we've got.

Who's it gonna be? I'm well connected with my Hollywood pals. They keep me in the know. I'm no respecter of big guys and gals.

Dorothy Kilgallen, famed journalist from the 1940s and '50s. Celebrity, TV personality, columnist, and above all, investigative reporter who hates to see the bad guy win and the good guy lose. A strong and powerful woman ahead of her time in a man's world, able to take anything they can throw at her, gutsy and unafraid. But she has a tragic flaw: a tremendous insecurity about the way she looks. How does she manage this? She learns that power can substitute for beauty. As her Voice of Broadway column gains popularity, she realizes that in just an inch of column space she can make or break a career. She uses this power to attract beautiful men.

<LYRICS>On the arm of a beautiful man, I'll be clinging whenever I can. To hobnob with the best of society's best, can I ask you, oh, don't I look grand?</LYRICS> It works.

Beautiful men flock to her. She marries one of them. But there is always something missing. She is never truly sure that they love her back. That's Dorothy with Johnny Ray, a beautiful man extraordinaire and pop rock icon of the early '50s, with whom she has a torrid and very public love affair to get back at her philandering husband. This huge indiscretion should kill her career but doesn't. Her downfall will come at the hands of the mob, for Dorothy is beginning to learn that her true love is finding the truth and shining a light into the dark corners of human behavior. When her longtime friend President Kennedy is assassinated, she begins the investigation of a lifetime, and in the course of doing so comes to realize how shallow her life has been. "Beauty and power are fleeting, but the truth endures," she tells her mom and dad right before her death. And at the end, As always, she is determined and unafraid.

I am not afraid, never been afraid, and I won't be now or ever.

We leave the audience with the question: Was Dorothy murdered to silence her? She told her hairdresser and longtime confidante that she had reasons to believe her life was in danger. But she never feared death, and she never gave up. The finale conveys this upbeat message. People who will like this show are feminists, journalists, JFK assassination enthusiasts, those with an insecurity about their appearance, which is probably 95% of us, mystery buffs, and of course, middle-aged women with college degrees. What I'm asking for is help promoting the music. Ideally with a well-known recording artist, as a means to begin the branding process. The concept album, along with a virtual development program, will lead to a post-COVID-19 live production with a regional theater. My ultimate goal is Broadway, and just in the way of background, I've been there once. I am a Tony-nominated composer lyricist from many, many years ago. Broadway is not going away. So come join me this time.

Thank you very much, Chuck, for sharing your show with us.

Thank you. Thank you all very much.

Our judges are here, and I would like to know if you have any questions. Yeah, Frank.

Excellent presentation. Um, put it well. A lot of stuff that I wasn't aware of, so that was kind of fun. Um, so I understand generally what you want. Is there a financial ask, or is it just a general conversation that you're trying to get out of this presentation?

I will answer that two ways. I'll use Tim's "it depends." I love that. But I think it's more of a general, because I really need help. I need help marketing this product. I think branding it, by beginning with the music to help brand it, I think can get us eventually to a— some kind of a lab or workshop. I want to see the project. I want to see the show up on a stage. Right now we've been working for about a year and a half on the music, on demo, high-quality demo recordings. And actually we have the kind of recordings that we can strip the video, strip the vocals out and use the music if we have to use it in some kind of a production. We have almost all of it done. In fact, if it wasn't for COVID-19, it would be done. So we're looking to try to take that next step Maybe, maybe a 29-hour reading, or perhaps a, some kind of a workshop, or even a virtual— I don't know, I don't know enough about it. So I'm looking for, sort of, we're looking for a partner for help in getting this project to the next step.

So a follow-up question then is, did Kim talk to you about alternative media? And with that, I'm going to bow out.

Listen.

Sorry.

He was just saying, Chuck, talking about alternative means of media, like a film version of it, for example.

Yes.

Oh, yes. Yeah, I would love to consider a virtual production if the technology is there for a Zoom production, perhaps, or a film. I think anything that would get us to the point where we can see this show mounted We can do— we've been working so many years, for so hard and so long on the audio, and now we need to see it up on the stage. So it can be virtual, it can be film, it can be a workshop, stage workshop. I know we're in the middle of COVID-19, so that has to come into play. But I also think that things can be done with the music right now that may not be affected too much by COVID-19. For example, concept album. Maybe we can work on a concept album that can start branding this show.

Great. Next, next question. Jonathan? Thanks.

So just a style point for— because I've heard this before, I've heard this on the other 9— always have a number. Like, figure out your best case, figure out your worst case, But is it $10,000, $25,000, $100,000? And if you don't have a number, make one up because it just sounds like you don't know what you're— you don't have a plan. So you could say, you know, we could do the $50,000 version is this, the $25,000 version of this, and $5,000 for this. But it's always— I think it's always good when you're doing investor pitch.

I'm actually going to fall on the sword for that because Chuck has money right now. He didn't want to come obnoxious and say that. So what he's looking for is expertise.

Okay, got it.

All right.

So, but I thought it was great. I mean, I think it's a very— the idea that the age period is compelling. It's a broad-based audience base, not nichey. How'd you come up— what inspired you to pick this story?

Okay, that's a good question. I thought the story of her life was compelling. I mean, there's been a lot recently about her death. That won't make a musical, but I started studying her life and I heard music. For example, when she was a very young woman, she wanted to be a crime reporter, but she'd never seen a dead body. She wouldn't even go to a funeral. I said, bam, musical number. Then the next thing was she had this desire to be seen with beautiful people, particularly beautiful men. In fact, I was saying to my partner Gina one evening, I said, you know, Jean, Dorothy really wants to be seen on the arm of a beautiful man. Well, I said, listen to the cadence of that. That's a musical number. On the arm of a beautiful man. Bam, another one, okay. And then, of course, the meeting or the affair she had with Johnny Ray, great, great musical number for love duet. So I heard music, and that's why I wanted to do the story. I thought it was a great story to have music.

Perfect. All right, next, next up. Please?

We have time for one more question.

Diksha.

I was just wondering who you imagine in the lead role. You said you were looking for a well-known voice for the recording, and I wonder who you picture in that role.

Well, it depends on whether we do the whole concept album or whether we can do a single. I mean, wouldn't it be great to see Andrea Bocelli in? Celine Dion, you know, Josh Groban, Adele. I mean, any well-known singers would really help promote this product. If, I mean, I need— that's where I need help. I'm not going to walk into an agent of, let's say, Andrea Bocelli's agent and say, hi, I'm Chuck Strahan, I've got a love duet for Mr. Bocelli.

Bam.

And that's not a musical number, that's the door slamming.

All right, Chuck, 5 minutes are up.

Okay, thank you. Thank you all very much.

And we're going to move on now.

We're going into holiday time with our next team. We have Holly Reed and Kelvin Reed with the show Come Find Me.

Hey, I'm Holly Reed and this is my husband Kelvin. We've written a new holiday show called Come Find Me. When our son was young, he had a friend with autism. We were always charmed by his wide-eyed enthusiasm and the authentic way in which he lived. When creating our show, we wanted to use the authenticity of a child on the spectrum as a window into the magical yet emotionally charged world of the holidays. A lot of life can happen from one December to the next, sometimes really hard things. and the holidays are never the same. When we let others see our pain, they can help us heal. Depending on others is good and often the key to moving forward. Come Find Me, set to a festive and moving score, tells the story of young Ben Patterson, who finds the holiday season both joyful and challenging. When his widowed father is deployed just weeks before Christmas, Ben is left under the care of his cynical big sister, who has her own destructive ways of dealing with pain. With some unique seasonal help, Ben sets out on an unexpected quest to bring his dad and Christmas home. Ben's unwavering belief transforms everyone around him. He's the true Christmas angel, the true Christmas gift. We'd love to share some of our music picking up just after Ben's father has been deployed to a top-secret location. Ben struggles with not knowing where or how long his dad will be gone.

Tell me, please tell me. If you know, just tell me so my mind can just slow down. Tell me, please tell me. Afraid and lost and all my thoughts go round and round. It always scares me when he has to go. I need to know. I just need to know.

Christmas Eve is coming fast, but Santa, we believe in you. You're our only chance, so thank you in advance for making this Christmas one tiny little Christmas. This eensy-weensy teensy giant Christmas wish come true.

If I can make this happen, if I could wish upon a star, If I can send a letter hoping it will make its way to where you are, I'll make it happen, 'cause I believe the best time for hope to come alive, alive, has got to be this one.

We've enjoyed a strong development history with readings across the country and most recently held a 29-hour reading at the York Theatre where we were honored to work with a creative team and cast of some of the best of Broadway.

Ultimately, our goal is to become a part of the canon of the best-loved holiday film and theater shows. Our plans for 2020 include creating a concept album, a children's holiday book, and further creative development. We've already been working with an illustrator to give us some ideas for the holiday book, and we're super excited excited about that. We'd love to take a path similar to The Polar Express by creating a classic holiday book to build a solid brand, followed with a film or stage show that builds off that audience and branding. So our send a letter to you, dear fabulous producer, is our ask: $25,000 for arrangements, orchestrations, and helping us to develop a concept album; $8,000 for illustrations and Publishing Connections for the Come Find Me holiday children's book, and Strategic Partnerships to continue to help us develop the show. Thank you for the opportunity to present.

Yes, thanks.

Congratulations.

Thank you both.

Let's have our, have our judges join us.

For a little holiday spirit to my heart. Frank, you have a question?

Sure.

I really like the presentation. I think it held together very well. I liked the clarity at the end where, where you had your ask again, and maybe I didn't catch it all. Is this alternative media or you really can continue down because you had branched off and talked about film a little bit. You talked about other stuff. Kind of what's your current thinking on all that?

Sure. We did a 29-hour reading this past October in New York that was very successful. We're in rewrites right now. Our trajectory before COVID was to do a lab workshop in New York in the fall. And we were on track to do that before this all happened. So we were thinking, we had already been thinking about the children's book. So that's something we can do during COVID to just, you know, reinforce the brand. So we would love to continue that trajectory towards Broadway. If there's, you know, if there's film interest, we were, because of the epic nature of the story, people have always told us they really felt it lended itself towards film. So we always keep that in our radar. So again, you know, with COVID we're trying to navigate. We were just on a direct track to stage. But if there's interest or, you know, if someone in the studio world thinks that's a good path to take, then we're open to doing that.

And part of this was a directive that Pamela and I gave to everybody is we didn't want people to stand up and say, "We want to be on Broadway at the end of 2020." And so it's been a little challenge for all of this cohort to come in and put those together. All right, next question. Arvind.

Well, to actually— to pick up on that and then to ask the question, I think it's interesting because, of course, no one's on Broadway right now, but Broadway will come back, and when it comes back, a bunch of shows will probably have fallen away. So actually, this is not a terrible time to be developing new Broadway shows. And whilst it might be hard to mount a show in 6 months, it's probably going to be possible to do a workshop in 6 months. So I would just urge people not to completely abandon that trajectory, because in some ways, it's clearer than before.

That's a good point.

All right, next question. Brian.

Hi, not so much of a question, more of a comment. Piggybacking off of what Frank had asked you, I'm really drawn to the story immediately of a young autistic child whose father has been deployed, left with his sister, that being all challenging, and what he goes through to reunite with dad. That's very compelling to me, and I immediately thought, my gosh, that is a film I would love to sit through. So I would really love to see that written out in long form that way.

Thanks.

Okay. Another question. Diksha.

I'm curious about when you talk about the book, are you seeing the book more as a marketing vehicle for the play, the show, or the film, or are you thinking about it as a sort of product of its own that requires marketing and distribution? And how are you thinking about the sort of book element of it?

Sure.

I would say it's probably a separate product. Obviously, it would be a companion product. It could be even a pre-read. We've thought— Kyle had shared with us some earlier in this week about possibly like having that as a pre-read for some of the autistic communities to, you know, read through the show, have a familiarity with the story. And that way, when they go to the show, they already have an idea of what's going to happen. So I think it could be a companion there. But I do think that it can be a standalone piece as well. Ideally, I would love for it to be published with a publisher and not self-published because when people start going into Barnes Noble again, you know, that being on the holiday display. And as a parent, when I, you know, when my kids were little and I would go into Barnes Noble, I wanted a new Christmas book, you know, if there was one out. We wanted a new story, you know, for that year. So we want to be that new story.

All right, fantastic. That, that wraps us up for Q&A.

All right, thank you, judges. We'll see you in a few more minutes. But for right now, we'd like to introduce our next team. We have Ariana Johns and Daryl Curry with Glamour and Grit.

Welcome to Glamour and Grit.

Glow and grit as it rose to on its fiery spit. So take care.

On her 17th birthday, Deanna, a young witch lost in teenage angst, is brought into a lush forest by her mother Amanda to connect to her magical roots.

Hey, time to leave this all behind you, Mom.

Let the quiet Magic find you.

Excuse me, are you crazy? You have got to be kidding, Deanna, you silly little—

Her father Corvin, an environmental scientist, is set to join them later, but Amanda, who was born in a hazelnut shell after all, conjures his image.

In you I have found my man.

<LYRICS>I can feel you breathing inside me.</LYRICS> When Corbin goes missing, Deanna taps into her connection with the ancient forest voices.

Sunfire above the earth. Water flowing through our veins. Warm night. Sacred is the frequency.

And be as one as we On their journey, they meet an awkward troll, some cheeky tickies, and the formidable fairy queen, Merlinda. Meanwhile, Malix, an androgynous tech whiz, is creating havoc with his sinister virtual reality castle.

My name is Malix, child of thunder and lightning, ice and rain. This is my domain. You will feel my pain.

When Deanne and Alex meet, their connection is revealed and a battle— Welcome to Glamour and Grit.

Sorry about that.

Oh, Glamour and Grit is a new multimedia musical about inviting magic into one's life, balancing technology with mind and spirit, and finding one's family in whatever form they take.

Hi, I'm Ariana Johns. I wrote the book and lyrics.

And I'm Darryl Currie. I wrote the music. In Greenwich Village, where Ariana and I were part of a playwriting group She'd written a short sketch called A Stroll with Troll, and I thought it would make a charming musical. I like fairy tales.

There is a secret desire in all of us, whether we're the movers and shakers of Wall Street or a child experiencing their first steps, to want to believe that magic is real.

Do you believe?

The Glamour and Grit characters learn to connect with the forest by using their own unique talents—science, technology, and elemental magic—working together to save our blue planet.

Last November, we presented a staged reading hosted by the Dramatists Guild Foundation as a part of the International Climate Change Theater Action Festival. It was directed by Rachel Klein, and Jennifer Hershey of the Broadway Green Alliance was our guest Speaker. Our audience was demographically diverse, I mean literally 8 to 80, and everyone was moved by the family community of the show. The same people who connected with Into the Woods, Wicked, Peter and the Starcatcher, and The Wizard of Oz also connected with us.

Last year we thought the stage would come first for our show, but Our goal for 2020 and beyond is to explore digital platforms and alternative ways of presenting theater. We're looking for creative partners including producers, directors, puppet masters, and filmmakers who can help us to bring our musical to vivid life. It could be as simple as story theater or as complex as Harry Potter.

So Thank you very much for listening.

And remember, we are all magical creatures.

All right, nicely done.

We had a little issue with your sound. So there may be— first time. Yeah, it's Murphy's Law. But if anyone has questions about the story, I think that's where we had a little bit of garbling. Please feel free. Really?

Oh, I didn't even see that. Okay.

All right. Question 1.

I actually agree with you, Tim and Pamela. Can you guys talk a little bit more about the story? What happens to Deanna?

Shy? Well, first, when she does go into her— into the forest with her mother and connects to her magical roots, they have an adventure. They meet an awkward troll who becomes their third partner and discover that their— that Diana's father has been gone missing and has been taken captive, so they have to go on a quest to find him.

And throughout the show, throughout the first act, Diana's mother Amanda brings her to the woods because she's 17 years old and it's sort of a witch's coming of age. And there are certain things that she has, certain tasks that she has to perform. But this is a reluctant teenager who is butting heads with her mother. But as she goes along, she does come into her own. She finally lets the magic in, and this is where we— where the audience will connect, because the metaphor of magic is also about your potential, about your willingness to, to not be afraid of who you are and to let out, um, the, the, the, the, the, the uniqueness of you. And the whole cast, in fact, is— it's all— it's about the uniqueness of each of the magical creatures. I mean, all of you judges are magical creatures as well, and we wanted everyone to, um, to relate to that.

Great. I want a question now from one of these magical creatures. Kyle, did you— oh, I thought I saw you, Kyle. No? Alice. I just was wondering if you could speak to how this story is relevant now and and how, yeah, how the story is relevant now.

Well, I think in two major ways. For one thing, we're becoming more and more aware of how fragile our planet is and how we really need to connect back with nature and save, basically save the planet because we're running out of time. But also the break, like Malick, who's a main character in the second act, has created a virtual reality world, and even Diana has a hard time giving up her devices. So there's that element too, as far as not just younger people, but all of us being too addicted perhaps to our devices and seeing where we can though make those things work for us instead of against us.

And there's the element of redemption. Speaking of the maliks, we learn that through forgiveness and also learning that you are not alone, you are loved, can actually turn someone who has been isolated, who has isolated themselves and feel invisible, they suddenly become empowered as well and can actually turn around.

Very well done. That does it for our 5 minutes. And you did a, did a great job of making up for a bumble in a technology piece, which is very relevant to your show. So you were not addicted to technology. You were able to to run and do it on your own. All right, judges. Thank you both. So let's— thank you, judges— take down our cameras, judges.

All right, we are moving on to Rachel Dean and Wes Braver and their show Medusa. Hi there, I'm Rachel Dean.

I'm Wes Braver, and we wrote the musical Medusa. Most people think of Medusa as a villain. In the original Greek myth, she's a victim. In our story, she's a survivor.

Was it you or was it them shouting in the middle of the square?

Was it them or was it you who put the stakes in your Our show is set in ancient Athens, Greece, where Medusa is a priestess, one of the rare positions of power for mortal women. But one night at a party, Poseidon, the god of the ocean, convinces Medusa to walk down to the beach with him, alone by the shore. And when she denies his advances, he rapes her. In the painful months that follow, Medusa grapples with what to do. She can't tell her boyfriend, the pious warrior Perseus, and when she confides in her boss, the high priestess Stheno, Stheno reveals that she too had a similar encounter with the god of the ocean many years ago, but has been too afraid to speak up. Medusa decides that she can't be quiet any longer and goes directly to Athena, the goddess of justice, and begs her to take her case. In a piously public courtroom sequence, Athena's legal wit is no match for Poseidon's charisma in convincing the all-male jury. Medusa's furious testimony causes the men to see her as a hysterical Gorgon, hissing with snakes in her hair. She is exiled from the city, and Perseus, her former lover, sides with Poseidon and swears to go and slay the monster. To find out what happens next, you'll have to see the show.

Our score is derived mostly from hip-hop and rock, And the show itself is bold, timely, and unique.

It's a period story paired with a hyper-modern style, much like a few great shows whose marketing strategies we want to follow, like Spring Awakening, Hadestown, and Hamilton. We also have an additional advantage to pull in audiences. The name recognition of Medusa is almost universal around the world, and so is her image, which makes it an instantly compelling title.

So even as the world seems to evolve a more empathetic stance towards sexual assault victims, it still welcomes abusers into the highest positions of power. Thousands of years later, we're still telling the same story. And even though we're seeing this all over media and it's all in our consciousness, reading a report in a newspaper is never going to take someone to the emotional and cathartic place that seeing a musical can. And while some, some musicals have touched on this subject, we have yet to see a Broadway show where the main focus is assault from the point of view of a victim. The show also comes from a deeply personal place for us and our loved ones, many of whom have experienced assault and want to feel heard and empowered. Our audience is young activists, middle-aged women, women who have put up with harassment at work and on the street for decades because that's just how it was, and who— for whom experiences like Medusa are empowering and cathartic, Broadway influencers, and mythology buffs. This is our team.

We do have a director attached, Chloe Treat. She has been Rachel Chavkin's associate on a number of shows, and she's also directing Dave Malloy's next musical and ours. We've also been working with my best friend from college, Sylvie Scowcroft, a producer who's taken the lead on the business side for us for the past 3 years as we've developed the show.

We're fortunate to have a developmental relationship with NYU for readings to a full production. We learned there that the show works extremely well in colleges where students are passionate about these issues. With our producer Sylvie, we raised over $100,000 for an industry lab with some Broadway talent, including Heidi Bligenstaff, Kate Shindle, and Michael Kilgore. We also presented Medusa in a concert at Lincoln Center as part of Broadway's Future Songbook series. We're currently looking for additional investment and a regional theater partner before heading to the West End with Selador. We were in conversation with several regional theaters until COVID hit.

So now, in the meantime, while the theater world is stuck at home, we've developed a new plan to create a visual album version of our show, sort of in the style of one of Beyoncé's Lemonade or her self-titled visual album. So we're recording the big songs from the show with our— with help from our musician and singer friends who have good mics and a lot of time on their hands. But we'd love to also be able to pay them, as most are unemployed right now. We're also making MIDI. So then we'll, we'll take those songs and make MIDI music videos of each of the songs, each in partnership with different designers and directors. And here to close us off is a clip from the first one that we made last weekend in 48 hours with $0 as our budget.

Everything's become too much to bear. Still, I'm glad at least to have a coil of snakes. In my head.

Medusa, don't look away.

Thank you, sharks.

Nicely done. Thank you.

Great presentation. I'm sure there's some questions popping up.

Did anybody look away? Arvin, you're up.

Arvin, don't look away. I really like that.

I thought that was— I mean, you know, I'd love to know what happens next. I'd love to hear the whole thing. But as a concept, it's such a smart idea. It's such a smart idea. It's such a resident myth that hasn't been done. Like, I can't think of any really good, big contemporary retelling of it. I assume you guys know Circe and Song of Achilles, and it just feels like the natural next step of that. Why, COVID aside, why regional US to London West End? That's a slightly complicated flip.

Yeah, that's sort of how our connections have panned out. We have the connection with Cellador in London, so we thought we'd do that, and it's cheaper than Broadway significantly, obviously. So we just see that as more doable right now. And COVID has sort of shaken everything up. But with what you're saying, Arvind, about Broadway shows falling off and is there going to be a vacuum there to fill, would it be good to get in there? I mean, that's a question we have for you guys. We don't necessarily know how that's done. No one knows how that's done right now, obviously.

Another question?

So I had technical difficulties, so I had to switch to an iPad. So I didn't—

I missed most of it, but I caught the end of the clip.

And so I will— so that was great. So I'll invest just on that last song. But I do think if you ask for a suggestion, I mean, your international complexity is going to be huge right now, right?

Just immigration.

We don't know what anything looks like. So I would, you know, find a way to get something moving quickly locally.

So, sure, agreed, agreed.

Great. Next, next question.

And comments are good too. You have a comment or question, or if not, we will move along.

I'll just say, having been there last week, you guys did a great job of the present— the pitches in a different space in a great way. I think it really flowed through and I kind of understood a little more early on with the catch of the character. So great, great job with that. I also think it's a great concept, so thank you.

Thank you.

I'll just bounce off on that as well to say, um, I thought you guys did a great job. The presentation was wonderful. I love the music. And, uh, can you just remind us one more time what your trajectory was? I think I'm— I apologize if I missed that, um, pre-COVID. What the next step was that you were headed towards. You're very far along in your development of this piece.

Yeah, we're looking to either go somewhere regional and then move over to the West End and then possibly to Broadway from there. Yeah, we're definitely interested in Broadway. I'm not sure if we actually said that. We probably should. But yeah, that's, that's sort of where our connections are leading us right now.

Okay, there was just several steps around the trajectory. So that's why I just wanted to clarify.

COVID totally shakes it up, so we'd love to do a regional here, local, anything, anything we can find, but who knows when theaters will start up.

So yeah, I actually like the UK idea, so I'm on board with that. Thanks.

And this is Tim. Thank you, thank you, Wes, thank you, Rachel. Thank you. Okay, we have our next team is a trio of creatives: Christian B. Schmidt, Rose Ozer, and Weston Scott with Tinderella: The Modern Musical.

Thank you so much. We are Tinderella: The Modern Musical. My name is Rose Ozer and I'm the book writer.

I'm Weston Scott and I'm the lyricist.

And I'm Christian B. Schmidt and I'm the composer.

So this show was inspired by my personal failures with online dating.

My attraction to everyone I've ever met.

And my inability to pay attention to anything because I'm always on my phone. Oh, Christian.

This modern Cinderella story takes place in the momentous year of 2013 when a young woman, Meg, experiences for the first time the magic of dating apps through the help of Dylan, her so-called fairy god roommate. Meg matches with Marcus, who could be the one, but he is hung up on his kind of girlfriend Julie, who has recently suggested opening up their relationship. Meg goes to Marcus's party, needs to leave by midnight to catch Bart, and drunkenly leaves behind a shoe.

Ooh! Ultimately though, this show soars because it's about the value of a different kind of love, a non-photogenic love between two friends caring for each other when they have nowhere else to turn, eating quesadillas, and just generally experiencing life together. Still, this picture-perfect vision of friendship takes time because while Meg experiences one moment of rejection, Dylan faces constant discrimination, and seeing them truly communicate their feelings to each other is the cornerstone of this show. This is a story that unearths the inequities of the internet, demands that we must work to truly understand our friends, and celebrates self-worth over digital worth.

This show features an ensemble of 10 people in their 20s and 30s, and our audience tends to reflect that age group. We've had great success with the Tinder discount— $10 off if you bring a Tinder date. Look at those cuties! Hey, focus on the love, not the likes. And our show is also accessible to non-Tinder users, as a Cinderella fairy tale provides a very broad entry point. Cool!

Since our very first workshop production in 2015, every single iteration of the show has sold out. We've had extra weekends, the whole shebang. We use the momentum of our world premiere production at Customade in San Francisco to raise over $10,000 for our cast album, which you can find on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, anywhere you want to find your music. We were gearing up for a Portland production that had to be canceled due to COVID-19. And for that production, we tweaked the setting and references to be specific to Portland, and we are game to do that for other major cities. This show can be set in any city that has a cat cafe.

We would love a virtual week-long residency with a producer to dive deep into the core of the story and explore the forms that could flourish in a virtual realm. That might eventually look like a virtual reading, a film version, or a podcast, or something we haven't thought of yet. But for now, we really just want one week of your time to discuss options. We feel that the topic and audience of the show provide an exciting opportunity to experiment with the ways that tech and musical theater can really fuel each other.

And now, here's a little bit from our song "Magic (More or Less)," in which our fairy godroommate introduces the theater to our doe-eyed of gold.

You can savor sights and tones. So load the app, let dreams unfold.

It's magic, more or less. Bathed in lights and megabytes.

Swiping left or swiping right. If you're straight and hot and white, it's magic, more or less.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

I have a comment. Christian has been quiet almost the entire time, and all of a sudden this little comedian pops out right during the presentation.

So I definitely got a sense of the comedy for sure.

All right, let's—

judges?

Do you all see your show ultimately as— and if it was coming to New York City, do you see it on the trajectory of Broadway or Off-Broadway or possibly something that is malleable, much like Menopause: The Musical or The Vagina Monologues, how it's always adapting given the environment?

Um, yeah, we were really excited about this Portland production because we were going to be able to experiment with whether it would work as a localized script. Um, and, and I think it could. So in that way, I do think it could be adapted in that realm and perhaps be off-Broadway. Um, but no, I think we're realistic that this isn't going to Broadway. It's, it's raunchy, it's comedy, and it's It's about Tinder, and I think that's why people love it.

I love it. I love the freshness of it. I love it that it's dealing with a demographic of people that are using Tinder, whether they're from 18 to 75, you know, and people can all really relate to that. They can all relate to having love and loss and friendships and discrimination and adversity as it relates to the digital age. I get it. Well done. Thank you.

My video is locked, but quick question. Do you tender copyright infringement issues? Have you looked at that in terms of, you know, right acquisitions and so forth?

Yes, a little bit. It's spelled differently, and Tinderella has now been added to like the many dictionaries, actually. It's a word that people use that means, you know, someone who falls in love on Tinder. But during a week-long residency, we could certainly dive deep with a producer on our copyright infringements.

It should be— when you actually see the script, I'm not as concerned as a producer with the parody aspect of it. It didn't raise a red flag over the 2 weeks for me, and I'm usually super hypersensitive about this stuff after being able to read the whole script.

Question, Tim. I know I screwed my camera up. Oh, there I come again. There you are.

There I am. There we are twice.

So can this be done experientially? Meaning, is this something that could be done almost like in a dinner theater type thing or some type of event? Or is it more of a show? So is it, you know, I'm thinking more like the, you know, obviously COVID will change these things, but the museums of candy, the museums of ice cream, you know, kind of using a larger venue where people are doing something like having a meal, bring your Tinder date like you said. Is that part of what you've been thinking about or is it more of a typical stage play?

Totally. We find that pre-COVID, of course things might change, but we are definitely part of a night out on the town. People will come get drinks before, come see our show, and then go do other things. So I think we are definitely looking at that experiential type of thing. We could flourish in a lot of different places. We also had tech startups bring their entire workforce as like an outing for a trip to come and support and have a good time. So that's something we're very much interested in.

Deeksha, you had your hand up.

Yeah, I think this is so, so very smart and something that could work. You could almost imagine it having like a late-night version, you know, doing two performances a night. I think it's really, really clever. The one— I had one comment about your pitch, which is you sold me very quickly on what your concept was, and then I had to wait till the end for the music, and I almost I just thought it wasn't coming. And so my one comment is, you know, it's great when I heard it, it's great, you've invested a lot of money in making it happen. I wish it was a little bit more front and center. But that said, I think your concept is great. And I really encourage you to take this time off, as it were, to sort of invest in those tools like a podcast that will really help you build your audience because this is a repeat audience for when people can gather again. Building that fan base seems really, really key right now.

Excellent point. I agree with that. Thank you, judges, and thank you, team. Thank you. We are going to now move on to our last team, but definitely not our least. We have Laura Good and Linda Good with Ladyship.

Hi, I'm Linda Good, co-writer, lyricist, composer.

I'm Laura Good, co-writer, lyricist, composer, and we are going to talk to you about our musical Ladyship.

1889 London, and the streets are a dangerous mix of rich versus poor. Irish teenage sisters Alice and Mary are in a boarding house starving and short on rent. They try to steal for food but are quickly arrested and thrown in jail. Sentenced to a land they had never known, they are forced to make the treacherous crossing on a convict ship from London to Australia. Once their sentences are served, this new land can be the start of a new life. But first, Alice and Mary must survive the treacherous 10-month-long journey on a ship full of British soldiers, grizzled seamen, and hundreds of other young women just like themselves, battling brutal conditions, misogyny, harassment, and fighting for their lives. <LYRICS>Like blood from a stone.

Ain't no way up. Ain't no way out.</LYRICS> A true story?

Ladyship tells their story as they dig deep to overcome the inner and outer journey of what it will take to survive and to eventually triumph over a world set fully against them.

We are Linda Goode and Laura Goode, writer, lyricist, composers for the musical Ladyship. We've made a career in the alternative pop world as the band The Twigs for over 2 decades. As well as composing for film and television.

While we were making a record in Australia, a friend told us about her second great-grandmother who was convicted for stealing one loaf of bread and put on a convict ship.

We were amazed by these stories that have been hidden from history. Some of these women convicts were as young as 11 years old.

In early 2019, the newly finished script of Ladyship was a grand jury selection to be one of the 10 mainstage full productions for the New York Musical Festival. Going by the philosophy of putting your idea on a crash course with reality, we raised $75,000 in less than 4 months and put on 5 performances, which included several sold-out shows.

Only the strong survive. Only the hardest heart gets out of here alive. Do what it takes to wake the dead.

We used a simple set. 3 main set pieces morphed into a street, a courtroom, a jail, and a ship, all of which fit together in an 8-foot by 8-foot storage space.

I will not be broken. I'm like a china cup. Who says? Who says I have to play every little game just to catch a meager crumb? I never will succumb. I don't.

The music of Ladyship is inspired by traditional Irish folk songs, alternative pop, rock grooves, crosses over into a contemporary score.

Ladyship is looking for funding for a soundtrack, increased social media presence, and a creative producer to guide us through the next steps of digital media. We're also looking for someone to help us shop it as a multi-episode series to streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon. In the future, we are looking to do live theater productions in regional theaters, Europe, Australia, Broadway, and beyond.

Ladyship's journey has just begun, and we're excited to see where it goes next.

The lion inside me wakes. I'll fight and I'll seize the day. As I stand in the face of the fire, I won't be afraid. I'll find a way. Find a way. I'll find a way. Thank you. Whoops, sorry.

That's okay, you just wanted to remind us of the beginning. That was planned.

Thank you so much for watching. Thank you both. Thank you. Wonderful. Do we have questions from our judges?

I, I just wanted to say congratulations, guys. I don't have a lot of questions, but I love this piece and I love the backstory. I think I mentioned to the two of you at one time there was a play that was done quite a long time ago that had a lot of play attraction called Our Country's Good. It's sort of the male version of this period of history. And I loved that piece, but it's fantastic that you're taking it from the female perspective. The music is wonderful and great job with the presentation. And just thank you for telling this important story from the lens of the female. I really— hats off to you guys for taking that on. Thank you.

Okay, next question.

I will echo— I'll echo what Deborah said because I immediately wrote down The Outsider. I'm a huge fan of that particular show. So as soon as I saw— I listened to the music and you started talking about the story and the leadership and the whole thing, I went, oh my God, reminds me of Outsider. Like, I could see— I could see this show and see it over and over and over again. And I love that. And I love stories that are told through a lens that we don't often get a chance to see and hear and experience, but it's layered all throughout our history. So bravo, great job. Thanks, Brian.

You could accidentally play the soundtrack again if you want. I love the music, so feel free to accidentally hit it again.

That's what we're asking for.

We want to really flesh out a whole soundtrack and You know, we just did the show.

The cast is ready to go. I think we could, even with social distancing, we could make a soundtrack right away and start getting it out there. Great. Great. All right. Any more questions?

Yeah, Diksha. So in your plans to sort of have it reach out to all the streaming services, do you plan to sort of maintain its integrity as a musical, or do you see it sort of becoming more drama, straight play without the music?

Well, no, I mean, for right now we would see it as a musical-type soundtrack, a cast recording. I mean, certainly in the future, until we can get it into another live stage, we would explore other options and other ways of producing the music, maybe with some other contemporary well-known pop writers. But we are in the stage development, looking at to have it be developed more with more dancing and have it be a traditional musical style.

Gotcha. Thank you.

All right. Do we have another, any other questions and/or comments on this one? All right, well, thank you very much for, for bringing us home, ladieship. And now that takes us to the ever-popular time to figure out and tally your information. We are into calculation time, so judges, please take a moment. As a reminder, you have your virtual dollar that you can divide up any way that you choose to. Yes, and as a reminder for everybody, here are the 9 teams that you just saw. And would you mind reading the order again, please?

Of course, I will read it right now. We have St. Stephen and the Children's Crusade, Polona and Ophelia, The Girl Who Left Home, Dorothy, Come Find Me, Glamour and Grit, A) Medusa, B) Cinderella: The Modern Musical, and C) Ladyship.

And while our judges are calculating, we wanted to let you know that dropping today on Entertainment Weekly, but more important next week on the Actors Fund, we have helped put together a montage video of over 300 people celebrating as a fundraiser for the Actors Fund. And take a look at that. Ali, our editor, and Christopher, our producer, worked on that with a massive group of creative people putting that together. We also, a week from today, we have another Sing Tank because we had 13 cohort in this and 4 came directly from NAMT. These are festival shows that had been in the NAMT Festival and they are getting their own Sing Tank with a bunch of folk from NAMT who went through our Digitizing the Fourth Wall class. So same bat time, same bat channel next week, next Friday, to see more illustrious shows present. And also Kyle and I, we put together the Broadway Tech Accelerator, which we run as a traditional 13-week program, but we're also gonna be doing a hackathon, which is a 3-week looking for companies that are specific to what's going on right now in the live entertainment world and what can we do to help bridge in the development as well as the distribution gap. And finally, we are proud to announce that we are underwriting and supporting this year the week-long International Thespian Festival, which will all take place on Zoom, who is a sponsor of us as well as being part of the International Thespian Festival. And all 5,000 to 10,000 of these people that normally come live are going to be doing their summer virtual with live events on Zoom, meetings stars and singing and dancing and doing all the things while we keep our art form going.

And if you haven't already, please go to the bottom of your screen and subscribe to our YouTube channel. It will help immensely. And you can go to our website, nycoc.org/donate. All right. All right, now let us dive into the math.

I'm in for that.

And start dividing the dollars. And remember, this is all done in fun. This is not a real penny, a real quarter. This is all to give our teams the love they deserve for these incredible presentations and shows that they are developing. And without further ado, I'd like to ask Deborah if she's ready to divide up her dollar.

Uh, this is such a stressful thing for me to do. I've done this a few times and I always I always screw up the math, so hopefully I won't have done that this time. Just very quickly, I want to say to all of you, I, as again, I was a part of this from the beginning and everybody did such a great job. Some of you came into this with very little technological experience with Zoom and some of you more. So I, everybody did a great job. And if I could give a dollar to everyone than I would, but Tim won't let me. So here I go. I'm gonna start from the top and work my way down. I'm going to give, and the rest of the judges who've never done this before, you don't have to do it like I do it. Just so, don't start freaking out 'cause I'm gonna be all over the map, but I like to spread out my wealth, what little I have. So 25% of my dollar is going to ladyship. 15% of my dollar will go to Medusa. 15% of my dollar will go to Cinderella. And I just wanted to make a point that those 3 shows I have given the highest amount to because I feel that they had the most clarity and relevance of story and the greatest potential to move forward into a commercial theater landscape. That's what I'm looking for as a producer. I'm going to choose the next two, which are The Girl Who Left Home and Halana and Ophelia. I love the strong female characters. I think both of these pieces have a great, have great potential. I can't wait to see what happens with the film. But those are each going to get 10% of my dollar. And that leaves me with $25. Am I right, Tim?

You have perfect math so far.

Yes! I'm so excited. 20%, the next 20% I'm going to divide up between the rest of the shows, the rest of the pitches. I think they're all great pitches. Every piece has some relevance. There's a little more desire on my part for clarity and understanding of what genre you want to take your piece to, particularly with comfort. Find Me and with St. Stephen's. So I don't want to take up more time expanding on that, but that's where the other 20% will go. And as you've noticed, there's another 5% left of my dollar. And in keeping with the Theater Accelerator mission, we always like to encourage our, our folks who participate in this to take what you learn, use it, share it, and play it, pass it forward. So I'm taking my last 5% and giving it to Theatre Accelerator to continue to do this great work, particularly in this time of great need for artists all over the world and in our community right now. Thank you, everyone.

Deborah, thank you so much, and for the shout out to us and the nickel. We appreciate every ounce of support. And Tim would give me too. And you've given us far more than a nickel, let me tell you. For all the work that you've done in supporting Theater Accelerator and all the programs that we do. So thank you, and that was wonderful. Congratulations, everyone.

And now I'd like to—

thank you, Deborah. I'd like to ask Alice Brooks to give us your tally.

So I split up my dollar— this is the first time I'm doing this, but I split up my dollar evenly, so 25 cents a piece. And I chose the projects that I felt needed to be told immediately, that had this really urgency to them for right now. So 25 Cents to Ladyship, 25 Cents for Medusa, 25 Cents for Halona and Ophelia, and 25 sense for The Girl Who Left Home.

Wonderful.

Thank you, Alice.

I love your reasoning as well. Thank you. Next we have Arvind.

Hi. So my first time judging this, this event, so I will preface it by saying I'm going to approach it the way I actually approach producing, which is I am a very low-volume person. I don't tend to develop a lot of things. I don't tend to jump on board a lot of projects. I tend to be very, oh, what's the thing I want to do? And then I'll put all my energy into that. I spent 8 years doing Jagged and only Jagged in my stage life. I do more in my film and TV life. So I'm giving a dollar to Medusa because that's the thing I would like to make. That I saw today. That's not a comment that there are other things that I found worthy and talented and interesting. I was intrigued by Ladyship. I was, I enjoyed the youthful energy and approach of Saint Stephen and the kids. And Tinderella, I think, could make money and could be enormously fun. But the thing I would like to make is Medusa. So that's where my dollar goes.

That's a perfect way to do it. Thank you so much. And next we have Diksha.

Okay, um, so I started out, um, giving, um, 5% to everyone, um, just because I felt that everyone, um, had a really interesting idea and was at a stage where they wanted to sort of We still have to wait and see. And so I was interested in playing it forward a little bit. But that said, so I think that's 45%, right? Correct. That said, I felt that the projects that I was drawn to, given my background in marketing, are the projects that had a very clear idea for who their audience was. And a clear plan in this period for how to engage that audience. And for that reason, I gave Medusa and Cinderella an additional 20%, and I gave Saint Stephen an additional 10%, and I gave Helena and Ophelia an additional 5%. So yeah, that's why you're making me do math.

I'm having to put it— it equals— it added up to a dollar. So we both did our math well together. Excellent. Nicely done. Thank you. It's good that we're all using these skills still.

And Frank Cavanaugh, do you have your dollar tallied up? Can you share that with us?

Sure. I'm having a little trouble hearing you. I apologize. For me, some great shows. I was just checking to make sure I didn't have a recency bias, which is whatever you see last seems to stick with you the most. But where I ended up was 3 projects. Dorothy, which I thought was an interesting story and had a lot of places to go. I'd actually probably watch it on Netflix. And so I thought some more interesting development there. I like the central character. Ladieship, the energy of the people who presented it was phenomenal. It sounds like, and again, my recency bias may be in place, but it felt a little bit more complete in there. And Tinderella just cracks me up as all of my kids have found their current boyfriends, etc., or girlfriends on that app. Me, happily, I've not had to use it. Hope never to, but it sure sounds like fun. Excuse me. So that's 20, 20, and then 60 for Tender Out.

Oh, you— here I was dividing it up equally. Okay. So say that again. Dorothy was 20.

Yeah. So I was 20 Dorothy, 20 ladyship, and, uh, kind of a modified, more the investor's version of this is I was making my biggest bet on Tinderella. Got it. Excellent.

All right. Jonathan Leden, can you please share?

All right. Sure. So, so the way I usually approach this is I look at much more from an investor point of view, like Frank, and tend to think a lot about diversification and best probability of return. Not just getting my money back. And also, so I look a lot at the team and the accessibility of the story. So if I'm not— and this was a great group, and if there's— but there are a lot of very niche pieces here, which— and I think as Tim's organization, you guys in Tim's panel are thinking more about things being able to go to video and so forth. I think that's a great vehicle because it's easier to reach a target audience. But if you think about the big production and big risk, here's how it adds up. Helena and Ophelia, I'm not sure this is the vehicle. I wrote down Game of Thrones meets Romeo and Juliet. However, the team, this is your first time out of the gate and it's a good start, so I'll invest in the team at 15. Dorothy, I think there, I mean, there's just a great story period time appeal to audience intrigue, so 25. Come Find Me and Be Concerned, it would sort of get niched down as a sort of a two-week 3-week Christmas play, so Phil may be the better path for that, but I put $10. I put Medusa. I saw chunks of it. It's doing— I do a lot of work in ballet, and finding public domain classic stories is hard, so congratulations on finding one. $25 for that one. Tenderella, you had me, then you lost me. I can give feedback to Tim. And then Ladyship, I thought it was great, and you got a proven team that's worked together for 20 years that has a track record. That's the largest one, 25 also.

That's it. Thank you. Wonderful. And next, Brian Morland. Hello. Hey. Hi.

So I approached producing not dissimilar from everyone else that has said, you know, something that's artistically fulfilling but also commercially viable, um, and share the financial reward as well, which would be fantastic. So for me, um, I'm evenly distributed, uh, between, uh, Halona and Ophelia, The Girl Who Left Home, Tenderella, and Ladyship, all receiving 25 cents each.

So thank you very much.

Um, wait, wait, sorry, sorry, I'm putting these in. It was Tinderella, Polona, and Ophelia, 25. And who was the other one?

And then the girl who left home, 25. Got it. Tinderella, got him, 25. And Ladyship at 25 as well.

Okay, perfect. Thank you, Brian. Thank you all. And Lastly, we have Kyle Wright.

Hey, um, okay, not surprisingly, uh, being a Broadway person, uh, and working for a theater owner, I'm usually gonna go for something that I see a more immediate, uh, play for. Um, and, uh, not that I'm a producer at all or necessarily an investor, but the thing I feel most comfortable is something that I think is very close and just needs an extra little nudge to get into a Broadway stage, whatever that That means that's my world, right? On the commercial side. So less comfortable with investing in things that have further to come. That said, I picked the things that I most resonated with, with the story, and really clearly understood the story and the narrative. So I gave 50 cents to Girl Who Left Home, 15 cents each for Ladyship, Medusa, and St. Stephen, and then 5 cents for Halona and Ophelia.

Excellent.

Sorry, um, Tim's almost got it tallied.

Say, say him one more time for me. I got the 50 cents on the go.

Yep, 15 for Ladyship, 15 for Medusa, 15 for St. Stephen's, and 5 for Halona and Ophelia.

Perfect. Thank you so much, Kyle. And now We are done. We have seen all of our shows, and could we have all of our teams come back up on screen? Can we have all of our judges please stay on? And we want to thank all of you for participating today, and I know it's been a lot of work. It's the last day of our 2-week intensive at Theater Accelerator with these incredible teams, and we had 4 other teams that are going to be presenting a week from today at this exact same time. I want to thank everybody for the effort that you've put into these two weeks, and it really showed. It was a very strong group, and as you can see, you got a lot of excellent traction and feedback from these very important and intelligent people that can make things happen. So it's exciting. It's exciting for me to see how far you've come.

And big shout out to our Apples and Oranges family who's helped put all this together. Ido Gall, who has been interfacing with all of you, and Allie Rice and Nellie for putting all the social media together, and Christopher Sepulveda, who helped design this whole program with us. There's a lot that goes into pulling off these two weeks, and it's definitely a team effort.

So please stay in touch with us. By our website or our YouTube channel. We'd love to hear from you if you have any questions or comments, or you want to get in touch with us for any reason.

And subscribe, subscribe if you haven't.

Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. And thank you again for joining us.

Thank you, everybody. And Ido, on that note, can you take us off of YouTube and let us know when we're out, please?