Building a Hit Musical: Creating Engaged Communities from the Ground Up

As new platforms and technologies shift audience behavior and expectations, theatre makers and producers have the opportunity to harness their power to meet audiences where they are. In 2023, Potential ticket buyers not only desire to be a part of your theatrical world, but expect it. At Constellation, a theatrical creative studio, we believe your stage show should be the nexus event, not the only event. The worlds created for musicals have so many additional stories to tell and access to provide to new fans. By focusing on community, we can build deeply engaged audiences long before a show premiere’s that lead to diverse revenue stream opportunities and increased ticket sales. In this interactive session, creative director Brandon Powers will share constellation’s approach to creating multi-platform communities with tools and forms such as TikTok, Discord, and extended reality. Attendees will leave with a new perspective on how musicals can be developed and produced as well as prompts to begin building the “constellation” for their theatrical IP. Join us and learn to treat your audience as a collaborator not a consumer.

Brandon Powers is a creative director + choreographer who creates experiences across physical and virtual space. His work focuses on capturing liveness in the digital and shifting culture towards a more embodied future. To achieve the latter, Brandon used his knowledge as a movement practitioner to devise Embodiment Design, a methodology for designing more human-centered XR experiences. He created volumetric interactive choreography for Queerskins: ARK (Venice International Film Festival 2020, Tribeca Film Festival 2020), a VR saga, co-produced by Intel Studios, and collaborated on the AI-powered immersive installation, Frankenstein AI (2018 Sundance Film Festival), choreographing an AI-powered dance performance. He has worked alongside Tony Award winner Andy Blankenbuehler for Bandstand (Broadway/Paper Mill Playhouse) and created live work at La MaMa, HERE, Ars Nova, and Performance Space NY. On TikTok, Brandon has grown a community of over 65,000 followers sharing his work and tips on becoming a creative professional. His videos have been recognized by BroadwayWorld and Playbill, with the latter naming him the “unofficial director” of the Ratatouille Musical phenomenon. Brandon is a proud graduate of Northwestern University, ONX Member, NEW INC Community Member, Associate Member of SDC, co-Founder of 5th Wall Forum, and creative producer at Musical Theatre Factory where he launched MTFxR, a program supporting the next generation of XR musicals. Brandon is the founder and creative director of constellation, a creative studio building multi-platform transmedia experiences that grow engaged communities around theatrical IP. He has spoken about the intersection of arts and technology at the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Tech Week, the TCG National Conference, Verizon’s 5G Lab and Lincoln Center. www.constellationtheatrical.com

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