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 my head, there was no way this was going to happen,” Bear added. “We just wanted to put out the album for the people that followed the whole process of it.”

Some artists might bristle at your strategy of inviting in fan feedback as you create the work, leaving it open to significant influence from the audience in the middle of the creative process.

We know that fans and fandom properties that were once on the periphery are now at the cultural center. We have been imbued with power and we have become part of a cultural–and political–war.

On one hand, this trend is potentially devastating for the performing arts industry. On the other hand, this challenge may represent a revolutionary opportunity for these organizations to fundamentally adapt engagement methods and means to change up these experiences as we currently know them – or at least to change up business models so that they

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They learned that they messed up. A blind spot was revealed to them. In terms of fixing that blind spot, they did a very accessible step for an institution — you educate yourself, you hire consultants, you have a “gender explosion” workshop with your current production. But often that first step of education ends when the workshop is done, which I ... See more

The cast is a group of women and nonbinary people originating at ART, a very specific institution that has a recent, problematic history with how they approach representation for nonbinary people. What did ART learn or not learn from past experiences?