‘Co-Founders' is the musical to see with your start-up (or your hip-hop) buddies
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
Nine years ago, Beau Lewis created an unusual weekly therapy group for struggling tech founders. Instead of sitting in a circle of folding chairs, participants freestyled — as in hip-hop.
'There was a pressure for us to keep up an external veneer of success and not actually be open and vulnerable about all of the challenges and fears that we had,' recalled Lewis, who co-founded toy company GoldieBlox and serves as CEO of media company and would-be musical theater disruptor Rhyme Combinator. Those feelings, he continued, came out in 'whatever your subconscious brain bled out over this beat.'
Choreographer Juel D. Lane works onstage during a technical rehearsal for 'Co-Founders' on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
All the angst released during those rap sessions has now evolved into 'Co-Founders,' a musical about Bay Area start-up culture whose world premiere begins performances Thursday, May 29, at American Conservatory Theater's Strand Theater. But it's no longer just Lewis' baby.
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Co-playwrights Adesha Adefela and Ryan Nicole Austin, who also star in the show, pushed the production to ask broader questions. It investigates how tensions might multiply for a Black female coder from Oakland — someone who's never assumed part of, or invited into, tech's inner circle — and it explores how the Bay Area's inventive spirit extends beyond tech to rap and activism.
The 'Co-Founders' production team tinkers with Dadvatar during a technical rehearsal on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
'I consider myself a techie,' Adefela told the Chronicle during a group interview in the Strand Theater's lobby, which is outfitted with a grandma-style living room, complete with a twist-dial TV set and garish-print sofa, in an effort to help new audiences feel more at home.
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'Co-Founders': Written by Adesha Adefela, Ryan Nicole Austin and Beau Lewis. Directed by Jamil Jude. Performances begin Thursday, May 29. Through July 6. $25-$130, subject to change. ACT's Strand Theater, 1127 Market St., S.F. 415-749-2228. www.act-sf.org
As an independent artist, Adefela produces her own music, records her own videos and builds her own website, she pointed out. And her relatives, too, might jury-rig a giant sound system from a couple of boombox speakers. 'I'm like, wow, that's engineering,' she said. 'How come that isn't seen as engineering? How come I don't see my cousins and the like in places like Apple?'
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In the show, a song titled 'Valley to Vallejo' works to bridge that gap, thanks especially to lyrics by Austin that put La Raza and Black Panther Party activists as well as Oakland rappers Too Short and MC Hammer on par with Silicon Valley tech giants Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. The number asks, as Lewis put it, 'Does it take the same hustle to sell a tape out of a trunk as it does to sell a computer out of a garage?'
Aneesa Folds rehearses 'Co-Founders' on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
Austin points out that the drive of artists from San Francisco rapper JT the Bigga Figga to Vallejo Hyphy pioneer E-40 was 'inspired by the grit and the unapologetic nature of the Black Panthers.'
'That's where the synergy is with the spirit of the entrepreneur,' she continued. 'It's like, 'Hey, I gotta make something out of nothing, and even though everything around me says no, I know that I have it within me to say yes.''
Aneesa Folds, left, and Adesha Adefela rehearse 'Co-Founders' at the Strand Theater on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
In the show, Esata (played by 'Freestyle Love Supreme' star Aneesa Folds through June 22 and Angel Adedokun for the rest of the run through July 6) has an astonishing start-up idea that she's pitching to an elite accelerator: a 'Dadvatar' that creates a simulacrum of her dead father whom she's mourning.
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'If you are a technologist, what does that look like to deal with your loss?' Adefela explained.
Choreographer Juel D. Lane works onstage while Dadvatar, an avatar controlled by live-motion capture from an actor backstage, is projected on a holographic scrim during a technical rehearsal for 'Co-Founders' on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
Onstage, Dadvatar appears as a hologram interacting with flesh-and-blood actors, and he's operated in real time by actor Tommy Soulati Shepherd, who stays in a backstage booth. ACT is billing this use of technology as the first of its kind, noting that previous stage interactions between humans and holograms, as when Celine Dion sang with Elvis on 'American Idol,' have been recordings.
The show's projection wizards are David Richardson, of Los Angeles' famed theater-projection-pop music hybrid 'Cages,' and Frédéric O. Boulay, who splits his time between the East Bay and what the team jokingly calls 'the East East Bay,' or France.
Dadvatar, a a hologram who can react spontaneously in real time next to onstage actors, is projected on a scrim during a technical rehearsal for 'Co-Founders' on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
'I love the things that are not supposed to work,' Boulay said, of his attraction to the project.
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Richardson casually whips out sentences such as 'We've built a MetaHuman in Unreal Engine,' referring to an avatar and computer program well known in the gaming world. The resulting Dadvatar, in yellow shirt and jeans, resembles a video game character. When he appears next to human actors onstage, the result scrambles the brain; your eyes keep darting from one to the other, trying to make sense of it.
Actor Tommy Soulati Shepherd, who plays Dadvatar, demonstrates the live-motion capture technology that allows him to puppeteer an avatar with his facial reactions from backstage at 'Co-Founders' on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
Dadvatar gets projected onto an invisible screen, and to manipulate him, a motion-capture camera grabs and mirrors Shepherd's facial expressions: raised eyebrows and gaping jaws, micro-shifts in cheek muscles.
'I had to get contacts,' Shepherd revealed, noting that the camera can't read his eyes through glasses. New to the experience, it takes him an hour to get his contact lenses on every morning.
Actor Tommy Soulati Shepherd, who plays Dadvatar, demonstrates the live-motion capture technology that allows him to puppeteer an avatar with his facial reactions from backstage at 'Co-Founders' on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
To control Dadvatar's body movements, Shepherd uses an Xbox controller. Thankfully, he was already familiar with the gaming console, so he said that helped.
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Also of unlikely assistance: being a drummer. Shepherd has to keep one eye on a monitor displaying the Dadvatar, another on monitors displaying what's onstage, so he can react as if he's really there. He has to emote realistically with his face while operating with his hands a pressure-sensitive controller whose left-right movements don't correspond to Dadvatar's physical location but to gestural intensity.
Actor Tommy Soulati Shepherd, who plays Dadvatar, demonstrates using an Xbox controller to manipulate a holographic character in real time for 'Co-Founders' on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
On his second day in the booth, he told the Chronicle, 'I'm going to get good at this.'
But the bells and whistles aren't in your face, Boulay pointed out. 'The last thing you want is for audiences to walk out and say, 'That was a lot of cool technology,'' he said.
Still, the show taps into debates about the supposed evils of tech that date back to 'Frankenstein' and Prometheus.
Director Jamil Jude observes a scene during a technical rehearsal for 'Co-Founders' on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
Jessica Christian/S.F. Chronicle
'This show reminds us that it is not technology's fault. It is the way in which we are trying to use it,' said director Jamil Jude.
Ryan echoed that sentiment.
'Technology is a tool, and that tool is imbued with the power and the personality of the people that use it,' she said. 'So do you use that hammer and nail to build a concentration camp, or do you use that hammer and nail to build a temple or a theater?'
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