In this ShowBizU Luminaries interview, co‑founder of Apples and Oranges Arts Tim Kashani shares his unconventional journey from a music‑obsessed youth who filmed stop‑motion with an 8 mm camera to a computer‑science graduate who later embraced dance, rock‑band life, and rowing. He explains how his parallel passions for technology and the performing arts eventually converged, describing Broadway productions as “Silicon Valley startups” and film cameras as “computers with lenses.” Kashani details his creative workflow: he begins with rigorous technical structure—storytelling rules, directing aesthetics, and production logistics—then deliberately discards that scaffolding on set to allow spontaneous, playful experimentation. He discusses wearing both producer and director hats, noting how cost‑consciousness informs artistic decisions and creates a sustainable model for theater. The conversation moves to mentorship: Kashani credits mentors like Hal Prince, highlights his nonprofit Apples and Oranges Arts, and the Theater Accelerator program that nurtures emerging writers who may lack formal training. Finally, he outlines a long‑term vision of building tools and streaming platforms that eliminate “starvation” for artists, enabling creators and audiences to unite in a financially viable ecosystem.
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Let's start off by telling us your name.
I'm Tim Kashani, and I directed No One Called Ahead with you.
Oh wow, that's right. I remember that now. Tim, I mean, I would love to hear a little bit about your background. Let's start with your youth. What were you interested in in your youth, and what got you into being creative?
Very similar to you, picked up a guitar at a young age and started playing songs that I love to listen to. Where I know you, you had some of the classics, mine were KISS, Led Zeppelin, but I also bought a secondhand 8mm camera. This is when you could go to the local pharmacy and buy 8mm film and started playing with my friends of doing stop-motion or horribly acted scenes on our lawn where we were going to change the world. And sci-fi, just love sci-fi. And then I, I was influenced by people like the Steven Spielbergs and George Lucases and Robert Zemeckises of the world that were telling these epic stories with very human qualities to them. And then I wanted to go to film school, and instead I went and got a computer science degree, which Didn't make a whole lot of sense for people at the time, and I lived these two different worlds. Went from being in a rock band to rowing crew and doing computer science, and then got bet I couldn't take a dance class. And I took the class, which was indeed very hard, but that got me into the world of musicals. But still had this whole tech thing going on and started a technology company and went all around the world building systems and doing training. Always still passionate for musicals and for art. And for me, the world— my worlds converged. I'd love to say I made them do so, but it happened in the sense that when you look at a Broadway show that we might work on today, if you go into the orchestra during tech, it looks like a Silicon Valley startup. And also filmmaking— a quote film camera is now really a computer with a lens. And then you look at the whole post-production world, so much of it is using a blend of art and tech. And even in the technology world, we've built these systems that can operationally do what we do. But now tech is about bringing in new stories and new realities, and the technology side has become more creative. And I feel lucky to have lived through all of these incarnations that has led me to sitting next to you on this couch today.
Talk a little bit about how you've integrated your creative self and nurtured your creative self through the journey of starting a business and a successful business, keeping the artist alive, and then coming out of it able to integrate both facets in yourself?
I find myself fascinated by so many things in life. I see the opportunities we have as human beings to explore, and we have two sides of our brain, our logical side and our artistic side or our creative side. And I've always let them both run free, and that's worked in my favor to be able to step back and analyze something with a critical eye and also throw that away and be immersed in the unstructured world and look at what art does for you. And as a performer in rehearsals, I was always that person that needed to get it technically right first. In fact, I was doing one show one time where I I was playing the lead in Me and My Girl, this character named Bill Snipson. And one of my friends jokingly said, it's more my girl and a little bit of me because my co-star was very funny and getting all the laughs. And I had a lot of technical tricks I needed to do with capes and books, and I needed to get all of that first. And then once I got that down, opening night we had an audience and I just turned it on. Like, I was able to throw away that foundation now and focus on the creative side.
And just be in the moment.
Yeah. And then if we look at just our process together and working on a film, I always start very technically when I'm looking at whether it be writing or directing. And writing, I look at it as structure. What are the rules of storytelling? And then directing, what are the aesthetics? How do we make all these pieces fit together? You've handed me a script How do I tell that story? And I work then with the other artists that are involved, and I find that a lot of structure upfront is incredibly helpful for artists to flourish in what their creative endeavor is. And then once we have that, then I like to throw it out the window when we're on the set and say, now we have a foundation, let's get what we need, but then let's play. Let's, let's put the camera in a crazy place that doesn't make any sense to do, or let's have the actor try something that seems outlandish, and let's collaborate in a world that feels safe. And for me, that foundation and structure of my left brain, or all that technical stuff, gives me stability to then let the other stuff run free.
Right, because I felt that, you know, working with you on the set is that once the technical stuff was understood and once we had that covered, It was about having fun. It was about creating a space for the actors to enjoy themselves because what are we doing? We're putting on a show. You know, what's more fun than that? Being the producer and the director, one of the producers and the director, how was that for you? How was that experience? Was that helpful in the process for you?
I'm able to separate them in my head, and most of the producing work that I was involved with was before and then after post-production. And having our team of Judy and Christopher and Tom really doing the heavy lifting in the production side of what it is and the financial side of it—
Allowed you to focus in on directing.
On the directing of it. But what's nice about doing both is as a producer, you can't help but be conscious about the cost.
Yes.
And as a director, of course, You want to make the best piece, and you shouldn't be too concerned with the cost. But having to think both ways is not only good for the piece in its long term, but more about the model that we're creating, which is to say, we know that this needs to be financially sustainable for it to grow in the world and become something that other people are replicating and doing. And wearing both of those hats helps me to have conversations to all types of groups.
That makes total sense. And you're also, as a producer, setting setting yourself up to succeed because you're part of what is setting the shoot up. So you're giving yourself all the tools you need when you shoot, which makes a lot of sense. One of the things I wanted to ask you about is that you always seem to be ahead of the curve in terms of where the industry is going. You were one of the few people when I called you initially about the streaming idea, you were really one of the only people, maybe the only person that went, "Oh, I get this immediately. I want to talk to you about it." And it was instantaneous because have you always been ahead of the curve mixing your love of directing and your love of creating with technology? How has that served you?
I was at an event and they were talking about the human growth when it comes to storytelling and the amygdala, our fight or flight or our fear part of our brain that goes back to our reptilian brain and how we used to survive. In that conference, they were talking about how it inhibits most people because of fear. Somehow I think I might, must have a very small amygdala because I've, I've always— there's something about being at that bleeding edge and putting myself into a position that could fail catastrophically that excites me. Have I fallen on my face? Sure, there's scars underneath here that you can see. But when you are in that world, as hard as it is, when It's all said and done, you realize that you're doing something that's going to impact future generations. They're going to learn, they're going to build on what you did and make it their own. I've always looked at technology for that purpose, not technology for technology's sake. Even when I was building computer systems, I was always looking at how it integrates with the human experience, and that's actually what I founded my company on. And when you look at our world of Theater. We had been for 6 years looking at how we can take an industry that is flourishing right now on Broadway. When you look at the amount of shows, our theaters are full, right? Actors are working, directors are directing, writers are writing, but it's still 41 theaters, right?
And it's— and how does that translate to helping everybody in the community?
Yeah. And when you and I joined the industry, it was a much smaller industry because the way you learned was either you went to school or you, through mentors, you were— if you listen to somebody like Hal Prince talk about how his trajectory began, he had people that he was able to get in with and work with them, and they taught him the ropes.
That's interesting. Did you have a mentor?
I've had many a mentor, and I look at people that I've— in fact, every show I've worked on, I always gravitate towards that show because of mentors. And whether it be Hair or Memphis or An American in Paris on Broadway, each one, it was the artists and the producers, and that's why I chose that show. I felt I could learn from them. And when we look at then the industry, if we're now at the age where we should be the mentors, when you think— what can we create that enables the next generation to have some foundational structure that's going to amplify our art form. And that's for the last 10 years, my wife Pamela and I, when we launched Apples and Oranges Arts, our nonprofit, that was the concept. Because now today you have people that are writing and creating that never went to school, never have any quote formal training, but they watch things on YouTube or they're connecting virtually with these communities, right? And they're creating amazing pieces of story. The only way we can sustain that growth is to look at additional means. And I don't look at what we're doing by creating these digital versions of them as replacing theater. No, it's enhancing the live experience.
Right, and of course you created Theater Accelerator, which was to nurture writers and to teach them, which I've had the privilege of being involved in one or two sessions. And so how would you tie in your passion of developing young writers, your producerial abilities, also being a director in this new medium? What do you/we hope to achieve with developing streaming for this new generation and for this new world?
One step at a time, we're figuring that out. Hahaha, great answer. My long-term goal would be creating tools to take the starving out of artist, meaning that we're creating a sustainable world where people can create stories that reach an audience, and that audience and the creator unite together. And this model that we're talking about in creating now, we're just at the tip of it.
All right, Tim, thank you very much for this conversation.
