Host Luisa Lyons chats with choreographer, director, producer, and digital theatre artist Brandon Powers. Brandon shares his journey to becoming a choreographer/director, and his fascinating insights into the integration of VR and live theatre, Musical Theatre Factory’s XR initiative, TikTok, and the future of filmed theatre.

Brandon Powers is a creative director + choreographer who creates experiences across physical and virtual space. His work focuses on capturing liveness in the digital, building interdisciplinary communities, and shifting culture towards a more embodied future. His key projects include VR saga Queerskins: ARK (Venice International Film Festival), Frankenstein AI (Sundance Film Festival), and Duet (New York Live Arts). On TikTok, Brandon has grown a community of over 70,000 inviting audiences into the process of creating theatre and dance. He founded Constellation, an immersive strategy and production studio building engaged digital communities for theatrical properties. Brandon is a Creative Producer at Musical Theatre Factory, where he leads MTFxR, a program supporting XR musical theatre experiences. He has spoken on the intersection of arts and technology at the TCG National Conference, Verizon’s 5G Lab, Lincoln Center and more.

Show Links:
Learn more about Brandon: https://www.brandon-powers.com/
Musical Theatre Factory MTFxR
5th Wall Forum
Constellation
"The Future of Musical Theatre on Tiktok" Medium Article

Follow Brandon on social media:
Instagram
Tiktok
Twitter
YouTube

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Filmed Live Musicals is created by Luisa Lyons, an Australian actor, writer, and musician. Luisa holds a Masters in Music Theatre from London's Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and now lives, works, and plays in New York. Learn more at www.luisalyons.com and follow on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

If you're up to date on the Filmed Live Musicals podcast, you'll already have heard from Metro Theater Company's managing director Joe Gfaller, artistic director Julia Flood, and actor/composer Guinevere Govea talking all about the brand new musical Spells of the Sea. 

MTC is one of my favorite theatre's to stream from. Their work is always delightful, inspiring, and fun, and Spells of the Sea looks like it will be no exception. The musical started as a dorm room quarantine project for composer and actor Guinevere Govea, and was adapted into an award-winning podcast. 

After being optioned by MTC, the musical is currently playing its world premier run at the Grendel Theatre in St. Louis where it was filmed live by Higher Education Media during its opening week. The capture is part of the PNC Art Alive’s funded MTC Remote initiative which aims to make theatre more accessible across the St. Louis region and beyond, and allows MTC to stream all main stage productions in their 2022-23 season. We love to see it! 

Spells of the Sea will be available to stream on demand from February 24 until March 10, 2023.

Learn more about the musical, and where to buy streaming tickets, in the database! 

​In part two of our special on Metro Theater Company, I chat about the brand new musical Spells of the Sea with director Julia Flood and composer Guinevere Govera.

Discover how the magical new musical transformed from a dorm room quarantine project to a podcast and then became a fully fledged state musical! Hear how the University of Texas facilitated the project, the challenges of creating new work in the age of covid, and how actor-musos helped to solve a tricky problem!

The world premier of Spells of the Sea opens at the Metro Theater Company in St Louis on February 10, 2023. Streaming details will be announced soon. Purchase tickets here!

Julia Flood has directed Digging Up Dessa, The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Girl Who Swallowed a Cactus, The Hundred Dresses, Frida Libre, Bud, Not Buddy, Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, And In This Corner: Cassius Clay, Out of the Box, Talkin’ Trash, Afflicted: Daughters of Salem, Unsorted, and Say Something, Do Something! for Metro Theater Company since she moved to St. Louis to become artistic director in February 2014. Julia served on the national board of directors of Theatre for Young Audiences/USA from 2011 to 2019, and brings more than 40 years of experience to her role as artistic director of Metro Theater Company. Learn more at MTC.

Guinevere Govea is an award-winning actress, writer, and composer from Austin, Texas. She is a recent graduate from the University of Texas at Austin, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in theatre and dance as well as a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Guinevere’s first musical, Trash! The Musical, was a semi-finalist for the O’Neil National Musical Theatre Conference in 2021. Her second, Spells of the Sea, won Best Original Script at the B. Iden Payne Awards in Austin. Learn more at www.guineveregovea.com and follow on Instagram.