Shadowbox Live

Tim Fulton 0:06Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week, I sat down with Brandon Anderson, general manager of Shadowbox Live and Backstage Bistro, to talk about the Columbus theater scene, the origins of Shadowbox, what it means to be the general manager of America's largest residential theater company, and the responsibility that we have as creatives, business leaders, and citizens in making Columbus a destination city. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Also, the Confluence Cast is on Patreon. Find out how to support this podcast on our website, theconfluencecast.com, or at patreon.com/confluence. The Confluence Cast is sponsored by Art Makes Columbus, Columbus Makes Art, featuring stories about our city's incredible artists, stories full of inspiration, challenge, passion, and success. For videos, articles, an up-to-the-minute calendar of events, and an artist directory, visit columbusmakesart.com, the resource for all things arts and culture in the capital city. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Brandon Anderson, the general manager of Shadowbox Live and Backstage Bistro. Brandon, how are you, sir?

Brandon Anderson 1:41I'm doing great. How are you today, Tim?

Tim Fulton 1:42Good. Longtime listeners will remember we spoke last year with featured performer Amy Lei from Shadowbox.

Brandon Anderson 1:48Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton 1:48We're sitting down here talking about your season just wrapping up here the first weekend in November is...

Brandon Anderson 1:57Circle of Blood.

Tim Fulton 1:58Circle of Blood. Tell us about that show.

Brandon Anderson 2:01Well, Circle of Blood is actually a, an adaptation of, uh, a graphic novel called Kabuki: Circle of Blood by David Mack. It's a New York Times bestseller, really popular novel, and this is our stage adaptation of that. And it's, um, what we like to call a meta-media experience. It's taking different elements of live production, dance, music, video, and just having them all collide into this event, kinda tell a story in a much more dynamic way. There's a lot of what we call, um, actually everyone calls it, which is kinda augmented reality-

Tim Fulton 2:33Okay

Brandon Anderson 2:33... where our video screens are interacting with the actors on stage. So i- it's really cool. Uh, we haven't seen anything done like this before. I'm reckoning it hasn't been done.

Tim Fulton 2:41Okay.

Brandon Anderson 2:41But it is a ton, ton of fun, and it's a really, really action-packed script and show.

Tim Fulton 2:46How long does it take for y- 'cause you guys do do a lot of original work.

Brandon Anderson 2:49Right.

Tim Fulton 2:49How long does it take to put together a piece like that?

Brandon Anderson 2:52Well, Kabuki's been in production for about 17 months, I'd say.

Tim Fulton 2:56Oh, wow.

Brandon Anderson 2:57Uh, and that's just simply because of the distance in our creative forces, you know?

Tim Fulton 3:01Okay.

Brandon Anderson 3:01Working with David Mack, of course, to get the rights secured and get his vision, uh, materialized-

Tim Fulton 3:06Mm-hmm

Brandon Anderson 3:06... in, in the way that we want to, in a, in a way that speaks to us as well. And of course, if you're familiar with David Mack's name, he's an Emmy winner for, um, uh, title credits for Jessica Jones and Daredevil. He was actually a writer on the Daredevil series for a while.

Tim Fulton 3:17Okay.

Brandon Anderson 3:18So he, and he's of course out doing tons and tons of projects out west. So it's a matter of getting with him and then, you know, conceptualizing, you know, the look for the stage and, and all that. So but that's sort of a special circumstance. Typically, with our original works, when we're doing them all in-house-

Tim Fulton 3:30Mm-hmm

Brandon Anderson 3:31... you're looking at about a four to five-month, uh-

Tim Fulton 3:33Okay

Brandon Anderson 3:34... production cycle.

Tim Fulton 3:34But that's still a, a significant amount of time-

Brandon Anderson 3:36Absolutely

Tim Fulton 3:37... to have a team working at least part-time on, on those.

Brandon Anderson 3:41Absolutely. You know, i- i- the, the biggest, you know, issue is the script, of course, getting an idea of, of putting something from the mind onto the paper-

Tim Fulton 3:48Mm-hmm

Brandon Anderson 3:48... and understanding, you know, how that's gonna translate to our stage. And since we're a resident theater company, we also tend to write sometimes for the talent that we have in mind, you know? And sometimes that may take the story in a entirely different direction. So conceptualization takes a big chunk, and once that's all done, and s- actually sometimes in the process of it, we're casting and then rehearsing-

Tim Fulton 4:07Mm-hmm

Brandon Anderson 4:07... and, and then getting the show on its feet.

Tim Fulton 4:08And for those that aren't familiar, a resident theater company simply means most of your performers are staff. They are-

Brandon Anderson 4:15Absolutely, yeah

Tim Fulton 4:15... they are in-house.

Brandon Anderson 4:16Yeah, I, I kinda... And, and because sketch comedy and rock and roll is kind of our bread and butter, it's kind of what we're really known for, I've been starting to help people get their head wrapped around it by thinking of it as, like, Saturday Night Live or as, like-

Tim Fulton 4:27Okay

Brandon Anderson 4:27... a, like, a troupe. Like, you see these same people every week or every show, but they're always doing different things.

Tim Fulton 4:33Gotcha, gotcha. Give us the background, sort of how did Shadowbox come to be?

Brandon Anderson 4:38Well, Shadowbox-

Tim Fulton 4:3926 years.

Brandon Anderson 4:4026 years.

Tim Fulton 4:40Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 4:40Yeah. It all started with a guy named Steve Gayer and this dream to produce a rock opera about the origins of Merlin, and he wa-

Tim Fulton 4:47The Wizard?

Brandon Anderson 4:48Yeah, The Wizard.

Tim Fulton 4:49Okay.

Brandon Anderson 4:49Absolutely, yeah. And so he went to OSU looking for talent, and he came across two, uh, talented singers, along with a host of other folks, and put together a, put together this show.

Tim Fulton 4:57Okay.

Brandon Anderson 4:58Which, you know, was a, a, a labor of love, but not the most critical or financial success-

Tim Fulton 5:04Okay

Brandon Anderson 5:04... you know, Columbus Theater has ever seen. And those folks did their show. They enjoyed each other, and enjoyed the time they had, and enjoyed the creation process, and then went away.

Tim Fulton 5:12Uh-huh.

Brandon Anderson 5:12And then Steve had another idea for another show called, um, and I, I may be getting this wrong, but I think it's Lone Season is the next one coming up.

Tim Fulton 5:19Okay.

Brandon Anderson 5:19So anyway, these people got together and did a show again. And in between, you know, getting together and doing shows, they're working, you know, different, you know, catering gigs or wait-

Tim Fulton 5:26Right

Brandon Anderson 5:26... or waiting tables or going to school or whatever. And they decided that coming together and then separating wasn't good for the creative process, so they decided to stick together and start performing outside of these big productions.

Tim Fulton 5:38Okay.

Brandon Anderson 5:38And they found a space in which to do that, which is doing sketch comedy and rock and roll, all original stuff. Well, all original sketches, rather.

Tim Fulton 5:45Okay.

Brandon Anderson 5:45And those shows were run weekly or, or biweekly, and, and that kinda rolled into what we know to be Shadowbox now, that the production side of the, the rock operas had faded away for a long while. Now this company kinda built up their notoriety and their expertise in, in producing sketches and, and, uh, covering rock music. And then-

Tim Fulton 6:03And this was at the space in the Short North now, which is The Eagle, right?

Brandon Anderson 6:07This was... Their original, original space, uh, performance space was an abandoned buggy works building, kind of on the, on the, uh- ... west edge of downtown, I wanna say.

Tim Fulton 6:16Right.

Brandon Anderson 6:17I think it's where the lofts-

Tim Fulton 6:17Right behind-

Brandon Anderson 6:18Yeah

Tim Fulton 6:18... uh, Huntington Park.

Brandon Anderson 6:19That's right, yeah.

Tim Fulton 6:19It's now, like, high-end lofts and, and offices.

Brandon Anderson 6:21Exactly.

Tim Fulton 6:22Yeah.

Brandon Anderson 6:22Yeah, there was an old ... Yeah, right, right around near the Penn.

Tim Fulton 6:24Okay.

Brandon Anderson 6:24That's where the first space was. After that, they moved into a, a spot, we moved into a spot on Spring Street, 232.

Tim Fulton 6:31Okay.

Brandon Anderson 6:31And that was the company's home for a big chunk of time. That place was destroyed by fire, and at the same time, well, a little bit before that, we were building up a secondary spot too, 'cause what is now The Eagle-

Tim Fulton 6:41Okay

Brandon Anderson 6:41... on High Street, and then we were also moving into Easton, into our big operation out, out there.

Tim Fulton 6:46Okay. And then you haven't been in Easton for a little bit.

Brandon Anderson 6:50No.

Tim Fulton 6:50And now just down on Front Street.

Brandon Anderson 6:52Mm-hmm.

Tim Fulton 6:53Great. And you've been with the company for 16 years.

Brandon Anderson 6:5716 years.

Tim Fulton 6:58You started at the Cincinnati Theater.

Brandon Anderson 7:00That's right. I graduated from Xavier University down in Cincinnati. I actually am a Columbus native, born and bred.

Tim Fulton 7:05Oh, okay.

Brandon Anderson 7:05And then I went to college at Xavier in Cincinnati, uh, of course for four years. And then at the end of that time I'd, uh, I was studying public relations and had a minor in theater.

Tim Fulton 7:14Okay.

Brandon Anderson 7:14I spent more time in my minor than I did in my major.

Tim Fulton 7:17Right.

Brandon Anderson 7:17Spent a lot of time cutting classes to actually just design shows and work on shows and things like that, and-

Tim Fulton 7:22Okay

Brandon Anderson 7:22... didn't get an internship, so I'm graduating with this great degree, and I'm, I'm scared out of my mind because I have no prospects. Zero.

Tim Fulton 7:29Okay.

Brandon Anderson 7:30So the day before I was going to get up and get out of my apartment I wasn't gonna be able to afford in a month, and go apply at Banana Republic, I saw an advertisement for, or more of an article really, about this company opening up a satellite operation, coming from Columbus, opening up a satellite operation-

Tim Fulton 7:46Okay

Brandon Anderson 7:46... at the Newport on the Levee complex, right around across the river from downtown Cincy. And I said, "Well, okay. Well, I'll just give this a shot. We'll give it a shot." So I walk in there, do an audition, and then I get a call a week later saying I'd made the ensemble.

Tim Fulton 7:59Great.

Brandon Anderson 8:00Which is great. So I went up to Columbus for the summer, trained there.

Tim Fulton 8:03Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 8:03Came back down to Cincinnati, and then I was with that, uh, where I was in that location from the first day to the last day.

Tim Fulton 8:09Okay.

Brandon Anderson 8:09And we ran that one for about 10 years.

Tim Fulton 8:11Okay. What's the theater scene down there like? I mean, 10 years is not a bad run.

Brandon Anderson 8:15Not at all. You could definitely chalk up that experience to a lot of factors. You know, number one, it is the theater scene in, in Cincinnati. Um, you know, we're always looking to find emerging talent in here in, in Columbus. And the same way in Cincinnati, but on scale it was just minute.

Tim Fulton 8:30Okay.

Brandon Anderson 8:30And, you know, the bulk of what people saw in live entertainment was rock and roll shows or Broadway Across America, you know?

Tim Fulton 8:37Okay.

Brandon Anderson 8:37Whatever's coming into town at the Taft or, or things like that. It had definitely had a long historical theater experience. Of course, you have Playhouse in the Park there, which is-

Tim Fulton 8:45Right

Brandon Anderson 8:45... you know, the pinnacle, and then there's a vast gap between that and everyone else.

Tim Fulton 8:49Right. Well, but it's similar to, like, you know, the touring shows that come into the Ohio and the Palace. That theater district to me seems as though it's a whole lot of rentals.

Brandon Anderson 8:59Exactly, and that, it speaks to why we are what we are.

Tim Fulton 9:04Okay.

Brandon Anderson 9:04Because our drive was to be something a little bit off that beaten path-

Tim Fulton 9:07Mm-hmm

Brandon Anderson 9:07... and to do something that no one else had done before, and to do it in a way that speaks to what people in Columbus are looking for, which is an experience that's as good as New York or Chicago, but-

Tim Fulton 9:17Right

Brandon Anderson 9:17... it doesn't have pretension. It doesn't have sort of a sense of, uh, exclusion, as it were. But that's, that's what we evolved into.

Tim Fulton 9:25I would normally save this for the end, but can you compare and contrast that with the Columbus theater scene?

Brandon Anderson 9:30Sure I can. I think the Columbus theater scene is one that is willing and ready to become a big player.

Tim Fulton 9:37Okay.

Brandon Anderson 9:37And it's always been that way in Columbus. It, you know, what I'm coming to terms with growing up and kind of understanding where I come from and why I'm the type of person that I am and why Shadowbox has so attracted me, 'cause Shadowbox is Columbus 100%. It's what it is, unapologetically.

Tim Fulton 9:51Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 9:51But it's looking to, for folks to understand how awesome it is.

Tim Fulton 9:55Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 9:55And that's, that's the feeling I get from my town.

Tim Fulton 9:57Yeah. Absolutely. So talk to me about what, as a general manager, 'cause you were also a performer in the company.

Brandon Anderson 10:05That's right, yeah.

Tim Fulton 10:06What is your role? What are you doing as the general manager?

Brandon Anderson 10:09My job is to handle the day-to-day operations.

Tim Fulton 10:11Okay.

Brandon Anderson 10:11And that's moving our staff around where we need to be. Now, like myself, everybody that works at Shadowbox is also a performer, which means that during the day we're running the business as well as rehearsing for other shows.

Tim Fulton 10:22Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 10:23So, you know, a, a typical Shadowbox staffer is, in that first year, could come into the office at 10:00 AM, work a box office shift for a couple hours, have an hour and a half of rehearsal, go sell some tickets in our telemarketing shifts, then go into another rehearsal, maybe chop onions in the kitchen-

Tim Fulton 10:38Wow

Brandon Anderson 10:38... take a dinner break, change and get ready for black, set up the theater, do the show, and then clean up after. So you're looking at anywhere between a 9 to 13-hour workday.

Tim Fulton 10:48Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 10:48And all of that activity has to be balanced against, you know, what's most important, which is putting on great shows.

Tim Fulton 10:54Right.

Brandon Anderson 10:54But, you know, someone still has to paint. Someone still has to build sets, and it still has to happen. So my job is to manage all that movement throughout the day.

Tim Fulton 11:03Gotcha. Gotcha. And talk a little bit about, there was a story in the paper, and I saw that there was recently, like, a, a little tribute to Steve. Steve was the executive director for, what? 25 of those, 26?

Brandon Anderson 11:14For the whole thing. He was the executive director, executive producer, CFO, acting coach, vocal coach. I mean, it is, this is, it was his baby.

Tim Fulton 11:22He was always doing the 13-hour-

Brandon Anderson 11:23He was always his baby. So yeah, and, and micromanaging and- ... and, you know, but it, it seems like s- it's always such a bad term, but it was such a labor of love for him.

Tim Fulton 11:33Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 11:33And because this was the, this was his dream.

Tim Fulton 11:36Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 11:36And so being involved in every aspect of the operation was just, it was just grist for the mill for Steve, and it taught us all how to be detailed as much as possible everywhere.

Tim Fulton 11:46But he has stepped back.

Brandon Anderson 11:46But he has stepped back, definitely, and is now overseeing sort of our grander global artistic arch, you know?

Tim Fulton 11:55Okay.

Brandon Anderson 11:55He kind of guides it according to what he feels that Shadowbox is destined to be or what it's on its way to be or what it should be against the type of selections and the choices that we make in productions. And-

Tim Fulton 12:05How has that transition been? I'm just, the ... And this is- ... sort of a inside baseball.

Brandon Anderson 12:10Sure.

Tim Fulton 12:10Like, organizations like yours, theater organizations, arts organizations for a large part, when the, the person who sort of founded it- ... steps back, that's a difficult transition.

Brandon Anderson 12:22Absolutely.

Tim Fulton 12:22And sometimes organizations don't survive through that. Uh, it seems as though from the outside you guys are thriving and doing well, but what, what did you guys learn through that transition?

Brandon Anderson 12:33We learned that we were ready to do it-

Tim Fulton 12:36Okay

Brandon Anderson 12:36... uh, a lot of time before. You know, Steve, for a long, actually for the past seven or eight years, you know, Steve would discuss at least quarterly-

Tim Fulton 12:47Okay

Brandon Anderson 12:47... succession and how, you, you know, what do we do with that Steve got hit by a bus scenario-

Tim Fulton 12:51Yeah

Brandon Anderson 12:51... where like he's not here tomorrow, who does what and how do we branch out and what do we become? And we're-

Tim Fulton 12:55Somebody else needs access to X, Y, Z things.

Brandon Anderson 12:58That's right.

Tim Fulton 12:58Like literal, like just the l- very little succession plan stuff.

Brandon Anderson 13:01That's right. And he took it, he became very proactive in pushing us to think about those things-

Tim Fulton 13:07Mm-hmm

Brandon Anderson 13:07... and to begin training a lot of folks to do those types of jobs. So our new executive director, for example, or executive producer rather, Julie Klein, took over, you know, our Friday matinee shows-

Tim Fulton 13:18Okay

Brandon Anderson 13:18... to understand what it was like to produce sketch comedy on her own from start to finish. And of course, having that experience she was able to move on into, you know, she was always assistant directing Steve and helping with casting and all that.

Tim Fulton 13:28Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 13:28Now she's transitioned into the executive producer role from that, you know, from that experience, and now she's of course pulling other people up into that assistant executive kind of pr-

Tim Fulton 13:36Got it

Brandon Anderson 13:37... producer role. But it was scary and it was enlightening all at the same time because as it turned out, the fear that we had of not knowing what to do-

Tim Fulton 13:47Right

Brandon Anderson 13:47... we had always known what to do.

Tim Fulton 13:49Hmm.

Brandon Anderson 13:49Because Steve's teaching method is to push you-

Tim Fulton 13:52Right

Brandon Anderson 13:52... to find the answer, to explore all the options, and to give it the best effort. And taking those things into consideration, just applying those rules to any challenge, you're gonna come out on top.

Tim Fulton 14:03Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 14:04And once this transition had to get, had to be made, we all just took those lessons to heart, and it turned out, put together a great show, and then another great show happened. It was like, "Oh my God, we know what we're doing." Isn't that great? So.

Tim Fulton 14:15That's good.

Brandon Anderson 14:16It's been great, and now we're coming into the end of that first year in this kind of new lifestyle, and I think we've learned a lot and we're really, really excited to continue.

Tim Fulton 14:24Talk to me about what else you guys have coming up this season.

Brandon Anderson 14:29Well, right now we are moving into ... Oh, actually, we're currently running right now in addition to Circle of Blood, uh, is the Rocking Dead, which is our sketch comedy and rock and roll collection on Fridays and Saturday nights. Just two hours of, uh, sketches and music all dedicated to, to fall fun, Halloween-

Tim Fulton 14:44Okay

Brandon Anderson 14:45... that kind of great feel. Great high energy rock and roll fun sketches. Then we're rolling into the holiday season. We have Holiday Hoopla, which is our annual sketch, sketch and music show. Different material each year, but always a fun time. It's one of, it's actually the most popular show of the year.

Tim Fulton 14:59Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 15:00We do a lot of our business for holidays, so please come out. And we're actually premiering a new, brand new musical this year. Our head writer, Jimmy Mack, who's been so, so busy this year-

Tim Fulton 15:09Mm-hmm

Brandon Anderson 15:09... he's put together a new show called Cratchit, and that is A Christmas Carol through the eyes of Bob Cratchit.

Tim Fulton 15:15Okay.

Brandon Anderson 15:16So it's a different twist on a classic story. That has music from, you know, which is, you know, not a lot of Christmas music, from Soundgarden

Tim Fulton 15:24Mm-hmm

Brandon Anderson 15:24... from, from different rock groups. I think we've got some Counting Crows in there. It's a really great heartwarming script. It's a fun family show, so we'll definitely have you come check that out.

Tim Fulton 15:33Great. Great. Can you talk a little bit about some of the other theater companies in town and where, or do you even get a chance to go and see other work given the, the amount that you're working?

Brandon Anderson 15:43Yeah, I try very hard. I don't get to see a lot of touring shows.

Tim Fulton 15:46Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 15:46Which leads me a lot to see a lot of, of smaller shows, a lot of the, uh, the it- the itinerant companies.

Tim Fulton 15:50Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 15:50Notably Standing Room Only, I see a lot of SRO shows.

Tim Fulton 15:53Okay.

Brandon Anderson 15:53They have a really great aggressive schedule, or season rather.

Tim Fulton 15:56Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 15:57And I think they're a great little company that's doing work that they wanna do on their own terms, and I feel that audiences need to go and appreciate that and check that out. That's the crazy thing about Columbus too because-

Tim Fulton 16:08Okay

Brandon Anderson 16:08... when we always want that sort of big city feel to see theater in like raw spaces and do fun things that seem to be so metropolitan or-

Tim Fulton 16:18But that's happening.

Brandon Anderson 16:19That's what I'm saying.

Tim Fulton 16:19Right.

Brandon Anderson 16:20Like, a lot of people don't know that that's going on. Like, I went and saw a show with SRO. It was in Franklinton.

Tim Fulton 16:25Uh-huh.

Brandon Anderson 16:25You know, it was in an abandoned like foundry. It was like in a warehouse, and I'm like-

Tim Fulton 16:28'Cause they don't have a permanent space, right?

Brandon Anderson 16:29That's right, they don't have a permanent space.

Tim Fulton 16:31Yeah.

Brandon Anderson 16:31You know, you can catch them at the Performing Arts Center, you can catch them in Franklinton, but it kind of depends, and they choose spaces that are, as much as they can be, are, are specific to their productions.

Tim Fulton 16:40Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 16:41And I think that that's so great. And to see a lot of empty seats out there, it just, it drives me mad.

Tim Fulton 16:46Yeah.

Brandon Anderson 16:46Because the type of city that we want to be, I think the type of city that we have so much potential to be-

Tim Fulton 16:51Mm-hmm

Brandon Anderson 16:51... a big part of that comes from supporting local art and-

Tim Fulton 16:55Right

Brandon Anderson 16:55... supporting live art. It's what makes a town cool, you know?

Tim Fulton 16:59Yeah.

Brandon Anderson 16:59And I think that as we have grown as a company, it helps corporations and the business world understand that too, that connection between supporting live art to make a better city for great people to come and work for you.

Tim Fulton 17:13Right.

Brandon Anderson 17:13We have great partners like Cardinal Health now and AEP who are working to support our projects so that our social, our cultural landscape improves-

Tim Fulton 17:22Right

Brandon Anderson 17:22... which makes our place more attractive for great talent.

Tim Fulton 17:24How do we solve that problem? I, I, I know, I know that's a big-

Brandon Anderson 17:29It's, it's such a-

Tim Fulton 17:29... obtuse question, but, you know, stuff like this obviously I think it's pretty apparent to the listenership here that I dedicate a lot of time-

Brandon Anderson 17:39Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 17:40... to making sure that we're interviewing folks like you, visual artists, musicians, in addition to, you know, the developers and the business owners and the-

Brandon Anderson 17:49Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 17:49... the government officials. But, and maybe I shouldn't say this, the listenership for these episodes is not as high. You know, it's not drastically lower-

Brandon Anderson 18:01Yeah

Tim Fulton 18:02... but, you know, at least with a podcast, they're gonna tab through and they're gonna say, "Oh, I'm interested in this," or, "That's not really my cup of tea."

Brandon Anderson 18:10Yeah.

Tim Fulton 18:10And not ... And I do it myself with other podcasts-

Brandon Anderson 18:14Sure

Tim Fulton 18:14... you know, depending on the guest. But- I mean, do, do we have to hide it in there?

Brandon Anderson 18:19It, it, it is one of those things where it-

Tim Fulton 18:20Is it like, you know, should I be sandwiching you between like, you know, Mikey's Late Night Slice and Mayor Andrew Ginther and, "Surprise, you're gonna hear from Shadowbox, too."

Brandon Anderson 18:29I think-

Tim Fulton 18:29Like, is that-

Brandon Anderson 18:30... possibly, possibly, Tim, because I think that the public has to become responsible, if for-

Tim Fulton 18:35Mm-hmm

Brandon Anderson 18:35... patronizing art. I mean, it is one of those things where... And I think in our society, in our American society, we're reaching a point where it becomes evident that we have to take action to change and affect our world. Like, never before has it been more apparent that you can actually change the world if you put your mind to it.

Tim Fulton 18:53Yeah.

Brandon Anderson 18:53You know? Good or bad, whatever, you know, you might want to subscribe to, there are great things that can happen and there are not so great things that can happen. But what is amazing is that people are understanding the power of involvement and the power of support. I think that we have to teach our city that we have a responsibility for making it great.

Tim Fulton 19:12Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 19:13I think cities that we want to emulate, you know, not the target, like convention cities, not like a Charlotte or an Indianapolis-

Tim Fulton 19:19Right

Brandon Anderson 19:19... but an Austin and a Portland.

Tim Fulton 19:20Right.

Brandon Anderson 19:21You know, a city that has a personality, has a, has a vibe, has a, has a pulse. We have to become responsible for changing that landscape. And for people like us who have that opportunity to reach out to people, we do have to do that. We say, "Hey, guys, gotta put some art in your face," and that's okay.

Tim Fulton 19:36Right.

Brandon Anderson 19:37That's the, that's where corporations come into play. It's like for us to be able to partner with folks who have an opportunity to reach their thousands of employees or to contribute to make a difference in our marketing budget or things like that, that's them saying, "Hey, guys, you gotta come check this out. You gotta make Columbus cool. You gotta go and see live entertainment."

Tim Fulton 19:53Right.

Brandon Anderson 19:53And that's the difference. That's the difference between us and the test city that we used to be.

Tim Fulton 19:58What sort of annual budget are you guys working with?

Brandon Anderson 20:01I think our budget is about three million.

Tim Fulton 20:02Okay.

Brandon Anderson 20:03Our payroll is well over half of that.

Tim Fulton 20:05Okay.

Brandon Anderson 20:05Uh, which is, you know, if any business, you know, mind would tell you is ridiculous.

Tim Fulton 20:08Well, and you don't have a small space in an undesirable-

Brandon Anderson 20:11We don't have a s- That's right

Tim Fulton 20:11... neighborhood.

Brandon Anderson 20:12That's right. But yeah, our budget's about three million. We are having a great year so far, so I'm expecting to see that number rise, if not this year, then the next fiscal year.

Tim Fulton 20:20Uh-huh.

Brandon Anderson 20:20But we're doing okay.

Tim Fulton 20:22Good. Good. We'll basically just wrap it up by, you know, you have the option of living anywhere you'd like. Why do you continue to stay in Columbus?

Brandon Anderson 20:32I stay in Columbus because it's a city that is growing up around me, and I feel like I'm making an investment with my time and my life and claiming a stake in what's going to be a great American city, honestly. I want to be a part of that story. I wanna be a part of what it, what's cool, you know? Anybody within y- you know, a 600-mile radius of the town is like they, they flock to Chicago because Chicago's cool.

Tim Fulton 20:57Mm-hmm.

Brandon Anderson 20:58Chicago was cool not because you made it cool. It's because you, you, you know, you're now the customer. I wanna be the merchant.

Tim Fulton 21:03You're buying in, right?

Brandon Anderson 21:04Yeah, buying in. I wanna be the merchant.

Tim Fulton 21:05Okay.

Brandon Anderson 21:06You know? I wanna, I want, I want you to come to Columbus-

Tim Fulton 21:08I like that

Brandon Anderson 21:08... because I'm here.

Tim Fulton 21:09Yeah.

Brandon Anderson 21:09Because Shadowbox is here. Yeah, that's what it is. I've never really thought about it until this moment, but that's what it is. I want to be part of making it a great place to be.

Tim Fulton 21:20Great. Brandon, thank you for your time.

Brandon Anderson 21:22Ah, it was awesome. Thanks so much.

Tim Fulton 21:28Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, families, contacts, enemies, your favorite civil servant. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our post-production engineer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.