Hip-hop musical ‘Co-Founders' set to make world premiere at San Francisco ACT

Tech, hip-hop, art and Bay Area culture. All those elements combined and you get "Co-Founders." The musical was born in a garage and is pushing innovation in theater.

Before there is a dress rehearsal on the theater stage, NBC Bay Area's cameras were invited for rehearsals inside ACT's rehearsal studio in downtown San Francisco. The visionaries behind "Co-Founders" are Ryan Nicole Austin, Beau Lewis, Adesha Adessela and director Jami Jude, who is helping to bring it to life. Nicole Austin and Adessela are Oakland natives.

"For me personally, I want this Bay Area proud," Nicole Austin said. "I want this Bay Area proud in multiple ways."

"Co-Founders" is a story the writers believe many can relate to, especially if you're from or live in the Bay Area. It's the story of a Black woman from West Oakland teaming up with a white college dropout to chase entrepreneurial dreams in Silicon Valley.

The story is loosely based on Lewis' experience. He worked in tech in Seattle before moving to the Bay Area to start a viral media company in 2016.

"I started a weekly freestyle rap therapy group called Rhyme Combinator with three other founders who were also trying to make their startup dreams coming true, and that became source material," Lewis said.

One of the topics the musical explores is what tech has done to the culture of the Bay Area, which includes the history of gentrification.

"Our protagonist is a woman whose home is challenged," Nicole Austin said. "She's the last person on the block and her thrust in this musical is about trying to save her home and it becomes broader than that throughout the course of the musical."

"Tech is not the monster," Adessela said. "Tech is innovation. Tech is creation. But it's business. It's the capitalistic mindset that basically gets in and basically corrupts that spirit of innovation."

"It all depends on what their moral compass is, how that technology is used and how that technology impacts the region that they're in," Nicole Austin added.

"But we're often overlooked," Adessela said. "And this is bringing the millions of techies that are in the urban areas to the forefront that, hey, there's a spirit of innovation there that is quite the same as the spirit of innovation in Silicon Valley. Imagine if those two worlds came together."

Audience members will want to get up and dance, NBC Bay Area was told. The "Co-Founders" anthem, "Silicon Valley to Vallejo," features Bay Area legends like E-40, Tajai from Heiroglyphics and Stunna-Man.

"These are the people who are my heroes in terms of the sounds and the inspiration, spirit of independence." Lewis said.

It's not just the music. Creators said this is one of the most high-tech musicals ever produced.

"So trying to add advancements to an art form that, I have to say, is slow on accepting advancements has been a real great, great challenge," Jude said.

Crews used a gaming program called Unreal Engine to create digital avatars.

"And so we have humans playing digital hologram avatars interacting with other humans," Lewis said. "I think that's the first time that's ever been done."

Nicole Austin's simple explanation: "The human is playing the person on the screen and they are acting with a human."

Behind all the tech, music and choreography, creators said, on paper, the goal is Broadway and to go on tour. The personal goal for each of them is for people to see themselves in the story and acknowledge their communities.

"I hope that we are putting some building blocks to the infrastructure that's needed to establish, create and sustain an industry here in the Bay Area because the talent is here," Nicole Austin said. "We just haven't always had the opportunities."

"Just even bringing attention to the amazingness of the Bay and I'm going to say specifically Oakland because there can be so much negative press about Oakland," Adessela said. "Sometimes you could forget under all the stuff that's happening how amazing, how much innovation has come from just this place alone. 

"I hope we're able to bring people together with this and engender some empathy ... between some groups who on paper are pretty different," Lewis said. "But if they see themselves, there's potential for a partnership that we can really create the future together."