Ticking info here. Running May 29-July 6, San Francisco.
Review by David John Chavez for American Theatre 6/13/2025
As the world premiere of Co-Founders the Musical takes the stage at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco (through July 6), just a Bay Bridge or BART ride away from its Oakland setting, the show might be considered one of the most anticipated homegrown productions in modern Bay Area theatre history…
All these elements are thrilling for Jamil Jude, artistic director of Atlanta’s True Colors Theatre Company, who’s directing Co-Founders. Jude knows that his contribution must go beyond what the incessant slaps of the music, which leans into the Bay’s innovative hyphy sound, and what the eye-popping visuals are doing. There is a story to tell, and it must be told well.
Article by Lily Janiak for the SF Chronicle 6/12/2025
If “Co-Founders” were pitching itself to you at a start-up accelerator for musical theater, you’d add your name to series A.
The world-premiere musical has what the industry might call a compelling value proposition. Arena-ready voices, winsome actors, rhyme-stuffed hip-hop lyrics and eye-catching design fuse to tell the kind of Bay Area story that doesn’t get much air time, written by Bay Area artists, to Bay Area audiences…
Adesha Adefela, Ryan Nicole Austin and Beau Lewis’ show is new, hyperlocal and concerned with some of our era’s foremost questions: Who gets a seat at the globe’s most elite table, and when you’re bursting with talent, whose agenda do you serve?
Article by Lily Janiak for the SF Chronicle 5/28/2025
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.”
Article by Logan Culwell-Block from Playbill.com 4/10/2025
American Conservatory Theater has found its full cast for the upcoming world premiere run of RyanNicole Austin, Beau Lewis, and Adesha Adefela’s hop-hop musical CO-FOUNDERS, set to play the San Francisco company’s Strand Theater May 29-July 6.
Jamil Jude will direct the world premiere, with music supervision, orchestrations, arrangements, and music by Victoria Theodore, beats production by Will Randolph V, choreography by Juel D. Lane, scenic design by Arnel Sancianco, costume design by Jasmine Milan Williams, lighting design by Xavier Pierce, sound design by Connor Wang, video content design by David Richardson, and music direction by Tish Diaz. Rebecca J. Ennals will serve as stage manager, with Megan McClintock and Emma Walz as assistant stage managers.