Theater and Social Media

Be More Chill is a “sci-fi musical” opening on Broadway in 2019 about a teenager who tries to fit in at school by taking a computerized pill that will make him cool. The show originally had short run in New Jersey in 2015, and that would have been the end of it, were it not for a small group of high school- and college-aged fans rallying behind it. These dedicated fans blasted the cast recordings over social media until the show gained hundreds of thousands of fans, resulting in its comeback and Broadway opening. Dr. Amy Jensen joins us today to talk more about how theatre is changing for the modern world. The idea for this story came from fastcompany.com. Dr. Jensen is a professor and associate dean in the College of Fine Arts and Communications at Brigham Young University, where she teaches theatre, media education, and performance. She has written several books, including Theatre in a Media Culture: Production, Performance and Perception since 1970.