Jessica Ryan

Abigail, what was it about “Bridgerton” that made you want to turn it into a musical?BARLOW The opening scene is so theatrical. I could just see each part of the stage lighting up in my brain. And then I kept writing down lines of dialogue that sounded like song titles. The phrase “ocean away” was the first one that made me run to my piano.

The report’s authors conclude by arguing that hybrid (in-person and online) programming must form a key factor in future accessibility improvements: the more routes that exist for engaging with arts and culture, the easier it is to engage with, and the more inclusive it can become.

If you can set up a system where anyone can publish anything, and dynamically allocate more resources to the ideas that seem most promising, you're much more likely to produce a lot of surprisingly awesome output. This is important for reasons deeper than just "people are bad at predicting success"—I think there's something about surprise that audi... See more

BARLOW I’ve been livestreaming while singing and songwriting for an audience since I was a teenager. It’s like a muscle; the more you do it, the better you get at it. Emily has classic training and is incredibly educated in her craft. I am not, so it was just sort of my process to gain an audience’s perspective on what they thought and how I could ... See more

Last year, Barlow had watched the first season of Netflix’s saucy period drama about the elite marriage market of Regency England, along with millions of others searching for escapist entertainment during the pandemic. A 22-year-old aspiring pop singer with a sizable TikTok following, she posted a song that she wrote with a simple but, she thought,... See more

In hindsight, the reasons for the failed promise seem somewhat obvious: the Creator Economy was never really meant to be a solution for 99% of the hundreds of millions (or quite possibly billions) of creators that exist today; instead, it was designed to operationalize the financial infrastructure for the top 1%–the creators who have already broken... See more

How likely is it that the musical gets staged?BEAR It’s a bit out of our court because we don’t own the I.P. We feel like it would fit perfectly onstage. We see it so clearly. Netflix, you know where to find us.