The Dispatch

BROADWAY IS CLOSING. THE MONEY BROKE FIRST.

Dear sovereign renaissance,

Three updates this week. Our latest Substack article takes on the closing of Cats: The Jellicle Ball and Andrew Lloyd Webber's public warning that American theater is in "dire danger." Episode 12 of Share Your Bitcoin Journey is live with Philip Charter, the ghostwriter behind half the Bitcoin newsletters you already read. And Bitcoin Arts Park at the Midwest Bitcoin Summit is nine weeks out. Full briefing below.

◆ The BFTA Substack

Broadway just killed its most-awarded new show in five months. The money is why.

Three Tony Awards  ·  History for trans artists  ·  A million-dollar week  ·  Still closes August 8

On July 13, the producers of Cats: The Jellicle Ball announced the show will close on August 8, 2026, after just over five months on Broadway. The next day, Andrew Lloyd Webber posted an eleven-part thread on X arguing the American commercial theater is "in dire danger." Both of those things are true. The question no one is asking loudly enough is why.

The Jellicle Ball was not a flop. It was the most-awarded new musical of the season, tied by only one other production. It won three Tony Awards. When Qween Jean took the stage for Best Costume Design, she became the first openly trans woman to ever win a Tony. It was grossing between $900,000 and a million dollars a week going into awards season. It cost $18 million to bring to Broadway, and at those weekly grosses, once the theater, unions, marketing, general management, and royalty pool take their cuts, the math on paying back that capitalization simply does not close.

That is not a diversity problem. It is not a streaming problem. It is not a taste problem. It is a monetary problem. The dollar cannot hold value long enough to fund what Broadway builds. And it is the same math that is quietly closing your gallery, your dance company, your symphony, and your local playhouse. Every artist should understand what this means, because until we do, we will keep losing the shows we love and blaming the wrong things.

◆ Share Your Bitcoin Journey, Episode 12

Philip Charter.

British author & editor  ·  Founder of Totally Human Writer  ·  Co-editor of 21 Futures: Tales from the Timechain  ·  Gran Canaria

Episode 12 of Share Your Bitcoin Journey is live. Philip Charter, the British author and editor behind Totally Human Writer, joins us from Gran Canaria for a full conversation on writing, fiction, and community as the tools that actually change minds.

The headlines:

• From London marketing to Bitcoin ghostwriter. Walked away from a marketing career in 2011. Taught English across Latin America, Asia, and Spain. Published his first book in 2018. A coaching client asked him to help with a manuscript about "something called Bitcoin," and the next few years wrote themselves.
• Seven books, three million impressions. Seven published titles in his own name. His writing tips on LinkedIn alone have earned over three million impressions. He now ghostwrites for some of the most read Bitcoin founders and companies working today.
• 21 Futures: the world's first Bitcoin fiction anthology. Co-editor with Niko Laamanen of Tales from the Timechain, twenty-one stories from twenty-one authors including Knut Svanholm and Ioni Appelberg. Released by Konsensus Network in 2023, presented at Bitcoin Atlantis in 2024, and now a full Konsensus imprint expanding into the wider freedom-fiction universe.
• The Totally Human Writer thesis. "We don't need more technical explanations. We need to get better at telling stories." The exact reason we started Bitcoin For The Arts.
• Proof of Walk. Monthly meetups on the trails of Gran Canaria. Steps and signal, in that order.

◆ Bitcoin Arts Park at the Midwest Bitcoin Summit

Nine weeks out. The full briefing.

Bitcoin For The Arts is bringing Bitcoin Arts Park to the Midwest Bitcoin Summit at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. Load-in Tuesday, September 22. Two show days Wednesday, September 23 and Thursday, September 24. Load-out Thursday evening. Nine weeks from today.

The Program

• The BFTA booth anchors the activation, staffed by BFTA and volunteer team members across both show days, with grant information, Artist Directory sign-ups, and hands-on Bitcoin resources for the artists in the room.
• A community screening of Dirty Coin. The award-winning documentary from Alana Mediavilla, featured on Episode 11 of Share Your Bitcoin Journey. We are finalizing the film-feature location with the summit organizers this week and will announce as soon as it is locked.
• A live reading of Bitcoin: A Treasure to HODL for Columbus-area homeschool families, hosted at Bitcoin Arts Park inside the summit. Every child who attends receives a signed hardcover of Lindey Magee's Seuss-style Bitcoin children's book, at no cost to the family. Homeschool leaders in the Columbus area, reply and we will get you and your kids in.
• Booth conversations and micro-programming across both days: on-camera artist stories, one-on-one office hours, and short talks aimed at bringing new artists into the BFTA orbit.

Volunteer With Us

Our dedicated Midwest volunteer page is live. We are looking for up to five great humans, already planning to be in the Columbus area for the summit, to help us build Bitcoin Arts Park: booth support, stage and audio, videography and documentation, or wherever needed. Free conference admission for the days you volunteer, BFTA event gear, meals during shifts, on-camera credit in the produced recap, and a written reference letter available on request. Sign up at bitcoinforthearts.org/midwest/volunteer.

We are also finalizing a volunteer team-up with the Columbus College of Art and Design through BFTA advisor Kenneth Burris, an alumnus, and CCAD's employer partnership office. If it lands, we bring student-artists inside the summit, in exchange for the professional experience of a lifetime.

Sponsor a Piece of It

The eight-tier public sponsorship structure remains open, from a Featured Artist Stipend at $500 to Presenting Sponsor at $25,000, with in-kind contributions welcome across booth construction, video and photo production, backline gear, and hospitality. Our Midwest fundraising target is $80,000 or more. Everything we raise funds Bitcoin Arts Park to production standards and pays the working artists who show up. Reply to this email or visit bitcoinforthearts.org/midwest.

Contribute in Sats  ·  Now on Geyser

Prefer to contribute in Bitcoin, direct? The Bitcoin Arts Park Midwest sponsor call is now live on Geyser Fund, the Bitcoin-native crowdfunding platform trusted by builders across the network. Any amount, any wallet, no intermediaries. Sats route straight to the Midwest activation. Contribute at geyser.fund/project/bitcoinforthearts.

What We Are Not Doing

Straight talk. We are not committing to a live Nostr stream from the convention floor this year. Convention-center Wi-Fi is prohibitively expensive and free Wi-Fi is not stable enough to guarantee a broadcast we would be proud of. We will produce a high-quality post-event recap instead, and route it out through every channel we have. Better to build a beautiful thing on the ground and share it well afterward than to break a promise in real time.

◆ BFTA Artist Directory

Working artists, this is your list.

The BFTA Artist Directory continues to grow. It is the running database of working artists across every discipline who support the BFTA mission and want the organization's resources, updates, and opportunities routed to them directly. Signup takes about three minutes. It is free.

If you are a working artist, add your name. The more of us on the list, the more the movement looks like what it actually is.

Until next time.

Bitcoin for the Arts

Where to Start

Bitcoin for the Arts  ·  501(c)(3)

Sound money for timeless creators. Empowering artists with Bitcoin micro-grants & workshops.

bitcoinforthearts.org

Find us on Nostr →