Hello everybody and welcome to a new episode of our #CreativityWillSaveUs Podcast series! This special project is a video and podcast series http://creativepoisn.com/creativity-will-save-us/ where prominent figures from the international world of art, culture and entertainment come together to reflect on the central value that art brings to all humanity during these challenging quarantine times of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The initiative is also designed to support the global community of artists who are seeing all of their venues temporarily shutting down to safely prevent the spreading of the Corona Virus. I invite you all to go check our Web Series on the Official Creative Pois-On Youtube Channel.

And today we have a very special guest: Lorenzo Thione https://thione.me/

Lorenzo is a Tony-Award winning Broadway producer and the co-creator and lead producer of Allegiance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegiance_(musical), the Broadway musical starring George Takei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Takei and Lea Salonga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lea_Salonga , of which Lorenzo also directed and produced the 2016 film. He previously co-founded startups such as Powerset (acquired by Microsoft in 2008, which is the tech heart of Bing) and Artify.it; he is an investor, board member, and advisor for startups such as Figure Eight (now Appian), Weights & Biases, CrowdMed, Famo.us, Gobble, Just, and Lucid, and many more. Lorenzo is also the co-founder and board chair emeritus of StartOut, https://startout.org/ leading non-profit dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship within the LGBTQ community and is an outspoken LGBT advocate who was also named one of the most influential LGBTQ people in tech in 2014 and 2018 by Business Insider. He is also the co-founder and CEO of The Social Edge https://www.the-social-edge.com/ , a social media marketing and consulting firm with a focus on Broadway theater and nonprofit communications. His production company - Sing Out, Louise! https://www.playbill.com/person/sing-out-louise-productions-vault-0000126856 -recently co-produced several successful plays on Broadway, from Slave Play https://www.playbill.com/production/slave-playjohn-golden-theatre to the Inheritance https://www.playbill.com/production/the-inheritanceethel-barrymore-theatre-2019-2020 and he is part of the producers of the musical Mrs. Doubtfire which, due to the current state of emergency, has been suspended and we all hope it will reopen soon!

Ready for this amazing interview?