McCarter’s audio adaptation of Hamlet embraces audio experimentation to renew one of theater’s most familiar texts. Courtesy Make-Believe Association and the Tribeca Festival
For early modern audiences, the question of how to represent Hamlet’s dead father was answered by trapdoors, white flour on an armored face or an actor playing a bloodied corpse. After lighting and sound technology standardized the spectral stage, film answered with the magic of superimposition and the green screen. More recently, the 2023 Public Theater production uniquely possessed Hamlet by putting the ghost inside him. In a rapturous performance, streaming on Great Performances through tomorrow, Ato Blankson-Wood rolls his eyes back into his head, fiercely mouthing his father’s fiery plea.
In a new audio production, Jeremy McCarter, disciple of Oskar Eustis’s Public Theater and founder of the production company Make-Believe Association, goes a step further than the Delacorte staging. McCarter places not the ghost but us, the listeners, inside the character of Hamlet. The sounds of his environment merge with the sounds of his body. We hear what he hears.
Readers might know McCarter as Lin-Manuel Miranda’s co-writer of Hamilton: The Revolution and as a public historian in his own right. But since the founding of Make-Believe in 2017, McCarter’s collaborative efforts have centered around original, live audio plays by Chicago writers. With the pandemic, the company shifted to longer form studio productions, including most recently Lake Song, which is something of a Waterworld for the modern ear. Listening through Make-Believe’s stream, I thought: Is this what would have happened if Studs Terkel, Norman Corwin and Octavia Butler got together and played around with 21st-century recording technology?
Maybe so. But even today’s listeners will need to warm up to any version of Hamlet told only from the main character’s perspective. And McCarter knows this. Episode 1 begins not with the “Who’s there?” of the famous sentinel scene (Hamlet’s absent from it, after all), but instead with listening directions for the modern commuter: “The tale that you’re about to hear, with its carnal, bloody and unnatural acts,” whispers Daveed Diggs, in a playful pastiche of the playtext, “will come most vividly to life, if you listen to it…on headphones.”
And so it does. When we first encounter Hamlet, sound designer Mikhail Fiksel conjures a scene reminiscent of an actor readying to enter a stage. We hear footsteps echo across the solitary silence of the stereo soundscape, a deep inbreath and then a heavy door opening unto Claudius’s coronation scene. Suddenly, the social space—the music, the laughter, the chatter—of Elsinore is upon us. Daniel Kyri, who plays Hamlet with a subtleness rarely afforded to stage actors, pummels himself, right from the get-go, with the wish that “this too too solid flesh would melt.” Soliloquies, under McCarter’s direction, are not private thoughts uttered aloud but instead long-running interior monologues.
Adapting Hamlet to audio is not a new thing. Orson Welles’s Columbia Workshop took it up in fall 1936, and the BBC 12 years later. These adaptations sound dated to us today, but they were part of a vibrant auditory culture of their time. As Neil Vermahas written, radio dramatists constructed a fourth wall for listeners at the same time that stage dramatists attempted to break it down for spectators. Contemporary productions on Audible tend to eschew the declamatory style of these earlier works, and also, sadly, their acoustic experimentation. This is where McCarter’s production is a welcome intervention into this overproduced yet underheard play: a return to the imaginative possibilities of the acoustic medium.
Daniel Kryi, who plays the titular character, at the “Hamlet: World Premiere Listening Event” during the 2025 Tribeca Festival. Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival
The series doesn’t sacrifice the visual sense but instead spatializes it: a complex arrangement of lavalier, shotgun and binaural mics captures sound in all directions. Purists might cry that McCarter slashes up the text to highlight Hamlet’s point of audition, but they are posers. Any Shakespeare scholar knows that the text we read today is itself highly mediated, a composite of at least three different versions. In the age of Grand Theft Hamlet, this version offers remarkable fidelity despite its formal innovation.
Intimacy might just be the word to describe what the Make-Believe team achieves here. And it’s true: We do hear Hamlet’s heartbeat, breath and memory against the backdrop of his social world. I think the experiment works best when we hear Hamlet not foregrounded but embedded in the specificities of his place and time; when the mic is not inside him, or even him, but instead on his lapel, capturing the soundscape as it merges with his fractured perceptions. This happens most memorably in Episode 3, when the sound of bells decreasing in half steps tells not just the time of day but also the scale of mental descent.
Yet there is a danger in achieving this intimacy by reducing Hamlet the play to Hamlet the character. We might call this McCarter’s “Hamilton-ization” of Hamlet: the individualizing of the character against his social world. The “To be or not to be” soliloquy, for instance, is done completely underwater. It makes for riveting audio, methinks, but it erases the fact that most of the soliloquies of the play are overheard. This includes the usurping King Claudius’s speech, where he laments that his “O limèd soul, that struggling to be free / Art more engaged.” This speech is translated as overheard noise in the audio, but we’d do better to listen broader. Claudius is comparing his soul to an animal caught in a glue trap, and at times, Make-Believe’s production, too, becomes more ensnared as it attempts to become more free.
McCarter’s stated aim is to resist the commonplace that Hamlet, as Laurence Olivier famously voiced over the 1948 film, “could not make up his mind” by, well, getting us into his mind. But this rhetoric ends up perpetuating that romantic individualism instead of challenging it, making what is social—primogeniture, murder, love—solely a problem of the conscience. In doing so, the artwork, too, ends up privatizing very public questions: What system do we resort to when an injustice has been enacted? How do we test the truth of our beliefs when we cannot trust our own perceptions? As McCarter explains in his New York Times op-ed, he is most interested in this question: “Who among us hasn’t felt,” he writes, “that ‘the time is out of joint’?” But in making the play into a universal coming-of-age narrative, we lose out on asking what an “us” is.
And so, how does this production stage “Enter Ghost”? I won’t give it away. It sounds awesome, even if it doesn’t quite make sense. (Especially if you’re a nerd like me and study the script along with the audio. How exactly does Hamlet write something down when he’s in the ocean?) But that’s no matter, because this adaptation is less about making sense than remaking the senses.
Indeed, the most compelling adaptation of the stage direction “Enter Ghost” is not an adaptation at all, but Isabella Hammad’s 2021 novel Enter Ghost. It tells the story of a British Palestinian actress caught up in a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. The novel doesn’t aim to make its characters like us but instead attempts the opposite: to force readers like me to confront a world that is radically different from their own. This is what all great art should do. Or so I’ve heard.
CEOs are under pressure—I get it. Economic instability, lingering tariffs, AI reshaping the rules, a shifting talent market—the list is long. Every day, we make tough calls to navigate these headwinds. And more often than not, those calls come down to one thing: the data in front of us.
CEOs chase what they can measure: revenue, margin, market share. Empathy, however, is too often sidelined as a “nice to have.” But I’m a firm believer that it should be one of the core metrics an organization’s success is measured on.
After 10 years of studying the state of empathy in the U.S. workplace, our data shows unempathetic organizations risk $180 billion annually in attrition. Even so, 59 percent of CEOs still say empathy is a “nice to have”—perhaps because they find it hard to measure?
CEOs are wired to focus on quantifiable success drivers, and anything fuzzy can carry the risk of deprioritization. But empathy does have measurable, bottom-line impact. Beyond the billions empathetic organizations save in attrition costs, our data also shows CEOs who view their organizations as empathetic are half as likely to have undergone layoffs in the past year. And, employees at empathetic organizations are 36 percent less likely to leave—and four times more likely to view their CEO as empathetic.
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This data tells me that empathetic leadership doesn’t just boost morale. It’s a predictor—and protector—of long-term business health.
Empathy is your next competitive advantage—here’s how to track it
Many executives will agree empathy in the workplace matters, but there’s a real challenge in making it measurable. What gets measured gets managed, and empathy is no exception.
For more than five years now, we’ve been operationalizing empathy at Businessolver, tracking metrics where we believe they have an impact on both the business and for our employees. Based on what we’ve seen firsthand, there are five empathy-driven KPIs I believe every CEO should consider incorporating into their executive dashboard.
Employee and client retention rates. Empathetic cultures attract talent—and keep it. Retention data, in particular, can tell a CEO a lot about how well their culture is resonating with employees and clients. In 2020, we transitioned from an in-office work environment to a fully remote workforce which has fueled improvements across the board, but in particular to our employee and client retention rates, which both now hover above 90 percent.
Absenteeism, engagement, and productivity trends. Businesses perform better when employees are present and engaged, so high rates of unplanned absenteeism are worthy of examination. Are there deeper issues with stress or burnout? Are employees supported in caring for their physical, mental, and emotional well-being? Since committing to an empathy-led work environment, both our employee engagement metrics and company culture score have increased.
Employee and client sentiments. Real empathy begins, and ends, with listening. Though 70 percent of CEOs say they’ve become more empathetic since 2020, the majority of employees disagree, saying leadership empathy has either stagnated or declined. That perception gap is a warning sign. Regular employee and client “pulse surveys” have proven to be valuable tools for helping our organization ensure C-suite beliefs are in tune with employee reality. Regular pulsing helps ascertain whether employees feel connected to the company mission and culture, if they have opportunities to grow and develop, if they have the resources to do their job, and if they enjoy what they do. Getting honest feedback can be uncomfortable, but it’s essential for building trust and a more effective organization.
Benefits usage. Over 90 percent of employees say workplace flexibility is a top expression of employer empathy. But offering benefits isn’t enough—leaders must track usage. Low PTO or mental health benefits utilization, such as Employee Assistance Programs, can signal fear, stigma, or burnout. Measuring what’s used—not just what’s offered—reveals whether your culture truly operationalizes the empathy needed to supports holistic wellbeing.
Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB). Our empathy data shows employees who feel their organization invests in DEIB are 32 percent less likely to leave, and 79 percent of employees say DEIB efforts demonstrate employer empathy. By combining DEIB initiatives with our company’s mission, we’ve been able to dramatically improve employee engagement, retention, culture scores, and operational resilience. Over the past five years since formalizing and integrating DEIB into our business, our Employee Net Promoter scores have improved 92 percent, and 87 percent of employees report having a sense of belonging at work.
Empathy is an executive metric
Empathy can, and should, be measured with the same rigor as revenue or market share. Because investing in people isn’t just good for culture, it’s good for business. Employee well-being is a powerful growth lever, and in the long run, the most empathetic leaders will also be the most successful.
Would you panic if nearly one in five of your team members were on parental leave? At Healthy Horizons, 22 percent of our employees expect to take parent leave this year.
Many business owners see that as detrimental to operations or revenue but companies like Healthy Horizons prove that when you plan for it, parental leave becomes part of a future-forward and resilient company culture. Our policy includes family care leaves for the birth, adoption, or foster care placement of a child. In the event both parents are employed by the company, each parent is entitled to separate leave. The more you plan and integrate maternity and paternity leave into your culture and policies, the more equipped your company will be to support employees as they grow their families.
Parental leave is steadily increasing in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Millennial and Gen Z employees are entering the workforce at peak parenting years. The question for small- and medium-sized business owners is: Are you building a business that supports your team members’ life stages? If you aren’t, the cost of avoidance could be steep: You risk sudden staffing shortages, burnout among remaining team members, and poor morale.
Some businesses avoid hiring women of childbearing age, which can be a breach of the law. Managers often worry that an employee won’t return to work after having a child. Replacing an employee can cost three to four times the position’s salary, which results in financial costs and potential operational consequences for the business.
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Instead of avoiding hiring employees who might take parental leave, the goal should be to build a team that feels supported and thrives.
Here are four steps for building parental leave into your company culture without disrupting operations or overwhelming your team.
Talk about parental leave during onboarding, at meetings, even on social channels as part of your company’s regular conversations just as you would discuss time off or sick leave. Whether you are a birth parent, adoptive parent or other caregiver, talking about your leave experience will not only normalize taking parental leave, but it will also deepen your relationship with your employees.
Share the work strategically
To avoid overburdening your team, encourage role flexibility and cross-training year-round, regardless of whether a team member is expecting a child or planning to adopt. You can use workshares and divide tasks among more team members instead of designating just one employee to take over. In addition to helping with workload during parental leave, this approach builds resilience in case of an unforeseen medical leave or other emergencies.
Encourage everyone to document their processes regardless of whether they plan to take leave. Don’t wait until an employee’s last day in the office to discuss what will need to be done while they are out. Spend the month before their planned leave date learning their role.
Stay connected, but respectful
Questions will come up while employees are out on leave but respect their need to disconnect. No matter how tempting it is, do not contact them about work. This is a good test of your company’s knowledge management and business continuity planning, which is needed beyond maternity leave.
Show you care and keep them engaged with company benefits by offering lactation benefits and baby gifts, and if the parent is excited to share updates, keep the team connected during their leave by sharing mom and baby updates or post baby photos internally with permission.
Final thoughts
At Healthy Horizons, we’ve seen the ROI of planning for parental leave. Eighty-three percent of parents return to work at Healthy Horizons, well above the nationwide average of about 50 percent.
Parents are more likely to return and perform better when they feel supported, which sends a positive message to all your employees. Companies that support working parents are more attractive to top performers, especially millennial and Gen Z employees, who value family care and flexibility.
Parental leave is predictable. Treat it like any business cycle—with preparation. When you plan for parents, and not just positions, you future-proof your business.
When I think about the importance of consistent classroom coverage, I always come back to the idea that students deserve to feel like their classroom is their home for the next 10 months. That sense of stability is critical, not just for their learning, but for their overall well-being.
Educators don’t always know what our students are going through outside of the school setting. Life at home for them can be challenging–maybe they’re moving often or face an unpredictable home life. What we want for our students when they step into our classrooms is consistency. We want them to see that same smiling face, hear that same calming voice, and sit in their same assigned seat. When those structures disappear, the consistency in student performance also diminishes. For students to be successful, consistency is the key.
The challenge of classroom coverage
Like many districts across the country, the School District of Lee County in Florida has faced challenges with substitute teacher coverage. At one point, we were operating with a 66 percent fill rate, meaning over one-third of substitute positions went unfilled on any given day. This created hurdles for our staff and students, as administrators worked creatively to ensure classrooms were covered. While these challenges tested our flexibility, they also highlighted an important opportunity to rethink how we approach the role of guest teachers. By focusing on consistency and connection, we can better support our students’ sense of belonging and their ability to thrive in the classroom.
Building culture through integration
The solution wasn’t just filling positions; it was changing how we think about guest teachers and their role in our school community. Treating substitute teachers as temporary outsiders was counterproductive. Instead, we needed to integrate them into our school culture from day one.
Now, we make it a priority to include our long-term guest teachers in our back-to-school week activities. We invite them to set up classrooms, participate in staff meetings, and join professional development sessions. By immersing them in our school culture from the beginning, we help them feel included and prepared, which directly benefits our students.
This approach has improved our fill rates. We ended our first semester of working with Kelly Education to find and train substitute teachers by reaching an 89 percent fill rate, and now we’re consistently in the high 90s. More importantly, we’ve been able to extend coverage to areas we previously couldn’t staff, such as paraprofessional positions in our high-needs ESE classrooms.
Creating stability for students
When students walk into a classroom and know that the same person will be there, it changes everything. They can build relationships. They can establish routines. They can feel secure enough to take academic risks and engage fully in their learning.
I think about my own kids, who go to school in Lee County, and I want them to enjoy every minute of being there. I want them to walk into a classroom knowing that this person is going to be with them for the long haul. This consistency has had a profound impact on school culture, especially in schools that previously had high vacancy rates. There’s a sense of calm that comes from knowing who will be in the classroom each day. Our full-time instructional staff aren’t feeling the strain of having additional students in their classrooms or having to cover during their planning periods. Our administrative assistants aren’t constantly working to place people here and there.
Professional development and support
We are utilizing guest teachers from Kelly Education to fill vacant positions until permanent teachers are hired. Previously, when we worked with Kelly Education, any of their staff could be assigned to cover a classroom. We have now enhanced this arrangement to require that all guest teachers who fill a vacant position until permanently filled hold current teaching certificates. Guest teachers who are filling vacant positions are integrated into our school community by receiving the same professional development opportunities as our full-time staff. They attend trainings during preschool week, participate in staff meetings, and have access to curriculum resources and support.
This investment in their professional growth pays dividends in student outcomes. When guest teachers understand our expectations, know our procedures, and feel connected to our mission, they’re better equipped to maintain the learning environment that students need.
This school year alone, we interviewed nearly 3,000 substitute candidates and hired 1,700. Even more impressive, close to 100 substitute teachers have converted to full-time employment within our district, with 50 of those hires happening just last school year. With all the recent new hires over the summer and start of the school year, we are at 367 guest teachers converted to full-time employment. When guest teachers feel valued, many choose to make our district their permanent home.
The ripple effect on achievement
While specific achievement data requires deeper analysis, the cultural transformation in our schools has been remarkable. Consistency in the classroom creates the foundation for all other learning to happen. Students can focus on academics instead of adjusting to new personalities and expectations every day. Teachers can maintain their instructional momentum instead of spending time re-establishing classroom norms after each absence.
A model for other districts
Our ultimate goal is to have zero vacancies on the first day of school, ensuring that each student achieves their highest personal potential. We want every student to feel at home in their classroom. I want my own kids, and every child in our district, to walk into school and feel welcomed, supported, and ready to learn.
For leaders facing similar challenges, my advice is to rethink how you approach substitute teaching. Don’t treat guest teachers as a temporary Band-Aid. Instead, view them as integral members of your educational team who deserve the same support, training, and respect as your full-time staff.
When guest teachers are integrated into your school culture from day one, when they’re equipped with the support and professional development they need, and when they’re part of a reliable system that puts students first, everyone wins. The consistency this creates isn’t just about filling positions–it’s about building the stable, nurturing environment that every child deserves.
Johanna A. Tortosa Earsley, School District of Lee County
Johanna A. Tortosa Earsley is a project coordinator in HR for the School District of Lee County. She can be reached at JohannaAT@leeschools.ne.
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Johanna A. Tortosa Earsley, School District of Lee County
Emma Thompson braves the frozen wilderness in “Dead of Winter,” a hackneyed horror film that traps the Oscar winner in subzero temperatures and an equally chilling screenplay. Courtesy of Vertical
Like almost every other actor of renown in today’s diminished world of second-rate movies, Emma Thompson is forced to face the challenge of inventing her own projects to keep her film career alive. This now includes starring in a hackneyed, uninspired dime-a-dozen horror film called Dead of Winter. She also produced it herself. Times are bad all over.
DEAD OF WINTER ★★ (2/4 stars) Directed by: Brian Kirk Written by: Nicholas Jacobson-Larson & Dalton Leeb Starring: Emma Thompson, Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, Gaia Wise, Cuan Hosty-Blaney, Dalton Leeb, Paul Hamilton, Lloyd Hutchinson & Brian F. O’Byrne Running time: 97 mins.
In this waste of a great actor’s talent and intelligence, she plays an aging, gun-toting hag unwisely revisiting an old fishing hole her late husband loved to spread his ashes. On a snowy road in the frozen wastes of northern Minnesota, her truck breaks down in a storm and when she hikes through drifts of ice up to her eyeballs seeking warmth and shelter in an abandoned shack in the wilderness, she finds a young kidnap victim handcuffed to a frozen basement pipe by a pair of married of demented killers (Judy Greer, especially menacing as the wacko wife) for reasons that are never convincingly explained. The movie is about the old woman’s futile efforts to save the girl from an endless series of assaults and tortures, narrowly escaping near death at every turn. It’s a preposterous story to follow, but thanks to the expertise of Emma Thompson, it keeps you interested.
Shot, slashed, bleeding, and half frozen to death, she copes remarkably well, fortified by memories of her happy marriage and her ability to keep a fire going in a deserted cabin, medicate her gunshot wounds and sew the pieces of her arm together (“Just like sewing a quilt,” she quips through the pain.) The white backdrop of constant snow and zero temperatures also add to the intensity of the winter ambience with enough discomfort that your teeth will chatter just looking at it. The movie is a far cry from the star’s collection of elegant Jane Austen period pieces, but Ms. Thompson is always worth watching, even when she’s wasting her time—and ours.
Unfortunately, the sloppy screenplay by Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb asks more questions than it answers, deriving most of its style from Fargo. Knowing the territory, why did Ms. Thonpson’s character choose the Midwest’s worst season to spread ashes from a dilapidated truck not safe to drive, even in the best weather? What did the kidnap victim do to get captured? Where are the vicious kidnappers going, and why? Director Brian Kirk does nothing to explain, elaborate or justify. Worse still, the two lunatic villains are identified as fentanyl addicts, but that doesn’t explain why the female half of the team goes through most of the movie with as many as five hypodermic needles at a time lodged in her tongue.
What attracted such a fine actress as Emma Thompson to so much carnage in the first place is anybody’s guess. According to the end credits, Dead of Winter is set in Minnesota but filmed on location in Finland, Germany and Belgium, when all it takes is one snow-covered backyard in New Jersey.
Advice like this is overtly provocative—but Prewett Troutt says she doesn’t want to spark discord with her words. “I don’t want there to be hatred and division and violence and loss and brokenness and sin,” she says. “I mean, those are things that are really hard to see and to witness. And I love everybody, so I want everyone to love everyone.” To her, a religious revival seems like the solution to the country’s woes. “I don’t think we have a political problem. I don’t think we have a racial problem. I don’t think we have a gender problem,” she says. “I think we need Jesus.”
Prewett Troutt grew up in a fairly cloistered world before she took a limo to The Bachelor’s crowded mansion in 2019. Raised in Alabama by her father, a coach for Auburn University’s basketball team, and mother, a Bible teacher, she was involved in her family’s Assemblies of God church community and the wider evangelical subculture. After leaving The Bachelor, she was hurt to see how other conservative Christians responded to her choice to participate in a reality dating show.
“It was really hard for me after I came off the show,” she says. “There were some months where I really struggled with wanting to be a part of a church, because I felt so judged and hurt by the church.” For months, Prewett Troutt says, she kept her distance.
But marrying Troutt brought her back into the fold—and into a more modern church, where conservative theology goes hand-in-hand with athleisure and Nike Dunks. “My husband and I moved to Waco, Texas, right after we got married, and he was working at a local church called Harris Creek,” she says. She credits their pastor, Jonathan Pokluda, with helping her develop as a public speaker.
Prewett Troutt’s plan to present an aesthetically attractive Christianity to the wider world is not without its challenges. In July, a video of the Troutts laughing about their eventual intention to spank their daughter—they’re currently parents to Hosanna, who was born in January 2025—inspired widespread outrage on TikTok and YouTube. Over 500 commenters on The Bachelor’s subreddit weighed in on the incident, and most of their remarks were strongly negative.
For Prewett Troutt’s detractors, the spanking video was a reminder that despite her large reach, she is still firmly ensconced in a bubble. Even other evangelicals complained that she and Troutt were repeating old, debunked ideas about how Christians should raise their children, without having the experience to know that their advice could be harmful. Because she gained her audience through The Bachelor, she may be less equipped to navigate the challenges of sharing unpopular views online as she’d be if, say, she’d spent those years debating atheists instead.
In the meantime, Prewett Troutt says that she and her husband are “learning” from the negative reaction to the spanking video. “I always want to listen before I speak. I always want to take it to God and ask him to lead me and guide me,” she says. “We take it to wise counsel and just say, like, ‘Hey, where did we mess up? Where did we fall short? Can y’all be praying for this?’ And so that’s what we’ve done.”
And for now, the criticism she’s gotten for remarks that seem out of step with modern culture are only making her more determined to stay the course. “I think there’s always something to learn anytime you get backlash,” she says. “It doesn’t make me want to shrink back or speak out less. It actually just makes me want to be even more bold, and be even more unashamed of God’s truth that I believe is the only thing that’ll set us free.”
Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù, Chibuike Marvelous Egbo and Godwin Egbo in My Father’s Shadow. Courtesy of Fatherland Productions
A powerful work of memory and political fragility, Akinola Davies Jr.’s My Father’s Shadow is a stunning semi-autobiographical feature debut. Set during the 1993 Nigerian election—when military dictator Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida overturned unfavorable results—the story unfolds through the eyes of two young brothers and follows them on a day trip to Lagos with their estranged father, whose interactions they watch and absorb.
Fittingly co-written by Davies Jr. and his older brother Wale Davies—the pair’s father died when they were young—the movie follows bickering siblings Akin and Remi, aged 8 and 11. The two boys are also played by real brothers Godwin Egbo and Chibuke Marvelous Egbo, who bring a playful, naturalistic energy to their childish arguments over paper cutouts of professional wrestlers. When their father Folarin (Sopé Dìrísù) arrives unexpectedly one afternoon, showing up indoors like a phantom, their surprise isn’t so much about seeing someone they didn’t expect but someone they never expected to see again. Davies Jr. shoots Folarin like an unknowable spirit, both revered and intimidating, as the film embodies both wish fulfillment and agonizing memory. It feels, at the outset, like a means for the filmmaker to better understand himself.
Folarin bluntly scolds the boys and drags them to the city to collect money he’s owed, during which he shows them a fun time and catches up with old friends and political comrades (who all lovingly call each other Kapo). They even run into a few astounded relatives along the way, who are surprised to see Folarin after so long. Without explicit gestures, the film becomes a ghost story of sorts. Folarin may be alive and well in the literal plot, but Davies Jr. often collapses time in ways that hint at something more soulful and more painful than a linear retelling.
Cinematographer Jermaine Edwards’ thoughtful use of high-contrast celluloid yields a warm and detailed texture, turning My Father’s Shadow into a living photograph—a memento of the past—breathing life into the city’s jam-packed rhythmic tapestry. On occasion, something in the movie’s fabric seems to slip, as if a projectionist had nudged the film strip aside to insert a few stray (and damaged) frames of darkened flashbacks, which Folarin appears to “see” in moments he zones out. With news of political atrocities on the TV and radio, Folarin and his children’s trip (surrounded by armed guards) becomes a visit not just to crowded Lagos markets but an excursion to 1993 from an omniscient future vantage, as though Davies Jr. were attempting to use images to send messages back in time—or to receive them from the past.
MY FATHER’S SHADOW★★★1/2 (3.5/4 stars) Directed by: Akinola Davies Jr. Written by: Akinola Davies Jr., Wale Davies Starring: Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù, Chibuike Marvellous Egbo, Godwin Egbo Running time: 94 mins.
This sense of premonition, woven throughout the movie’s fabric, is counterbalanced with a childlike simplicity. All throughout the visit, Akin and Remi try to reconcile their father’s love with his frequent absence—a scenario so far beyond their understanding that it causes tantrums. However, despite this tale being told through the adolescents’ eyes, the camera remains tethered to Dìrísù’s introspective conflict without cutting away, always feeling within inches of a satisfying answer. Both in 1993 and today, Folarin remains an open wound for Davies Jr., but observing this cinematic version of him—entirely in his element and among friends and acquaintances—is perhaps the closest the filmmaker can come to truly knowing him.
If there’s a flaw in the movie’s approach, it’s only in how it’s packaged for international viewers. There’s a florid naturalism to the dialogue, which switches between English and Yoruba, but the former—a slang-filled Nigerian Pidgin—is often subtitled in ways that westernize the dialogue, robbing it of its flavor. Phrases like “No vex” become “Don’t be angry,” while longer, more detailed statements are oversimplified. The gossipy exchange, “Meself just resumed last week. I don’t know you hear Chioma born twins inside January?” is reduced to the far more clinical and formal “Personally, I just resumed last week. I don’t know if you heard, Chioma had twins in January?” in the lower third.
While this happens throughout, it’s not a dealbreaker by any means, but My Father’s Shadow was notably the first Nigerian film to make it to world cinema’s most prestigious stage: the Cannes Film Festival’s official competition. This speaks to the fact that international distribution still needs to catch up to how the rigidity of language can hinder artistic expression. These western subtitle standards in particular clash with the movie’s keenly observed realism, while the more accurate, more colorful alternative would have been an easily understood window into Davies Jr.’s recollections.
Still, keen eyes and ears are likely to absorb the film in full, given its vivid dramatic presentation. From its gentle introduction to its jarring final scene—a lifelike anticlimax that makes sense spiritually more than logistically—My Father’s Shadow acts as both a retrospective and a soulful reconstruction, breathing life into the past while distinguishing the personal and pragmatic details that inform the complexity of a person—even one who exists entirely in memory.
anyyywayyy whatever unfolds as a tightly woven work of movement and language, where gestures and spoken word resist easy interpretation. Photo: Andrew Hallinan
The Brooklyn-based artist and choreographer Barnett Cohen sits cross-legged in the folding chair: tall and tattooed, dressed in their signature all-white street clothes. Despite their almost intimidatingly cool looks, they have an unassuming, gentle presence. When they lean back and say, “Okay, let’s go from the top of movement four,” it’s an invitation, not a command. Six hip yet humble dancers nod and rearrange themselves in the large studio space, take a collective breath and start moving in silence.
At first, the gestures were minimal and recognizable: arms raised in a V, feet tucked behind ankles in coupé. Their sneakers squeaked on the floor as they stepped in and out of clean formations reminiscent of cheerleading routines, bird migrations or both–Cohen’s work is never just one thing. Then someone started speaking, “High octane octaves / intrusive thoughts out of hand / we cohabitate with the nasty / we live with the worst,” and the piece jolted awake.
Cohen and his dancers were rehearsing the 4th-9th sections of their latest evening-length performance, anyyywayyy whatever, a tightly woven work of text and movement that will premiere in Brooklyn at Amant on September 26. A few minutes into the run-through, the dancers dropped to the ground and spread their legs. “We!” they shouted at the space in front of them. “Are! Queer!” They slapped the ground with each syllable, then spun around and repeated the same phrase. “We! Are! Queer!” Then they paused and, in a sing-song voice, teasingly added, “It’s true.”
“So this,” I thought as I watched, “is what it’s about.” I was right but also wrong. Cohen is not interested in ‘abouts’ or narrative legibility. They are many unpindownable things, and so are their performances.
“It was a very slow build into this type of work,” Cohen told me, meaning the combination of movement and spoken text which they call ‘movement art.’ (They are wary to call themself a choreographer, as they weren’t trained in dance; I will bestow that well-deserved title on them). “When I was a child, I wanted to be a poet and an actor, and those two things sort of converged in the creation of the work that I’m making now.” They followed that dream, studied theater and wrote poetry—they often appear at poetry readings around town and published a collection of poems with dancer/artist/writer Simone Forti, began a prolific painting practice and founded the Mutual Aid Immigration Network, a trilingual free assistance hotline for people detained in immigration detention centers across the United States. While living in Los Angeles, they experimented with what they call performances of the mind: reading aloud long lists they’d written in their studio to audiences asked to close their eyes. Then, slowly, they started to introduce movement into their work, which has since appeared at Canal Projects as part of Performa 2023, Judson Memorial Church as part of Movement Research and The Center for Performance Research, among other venues.
The first iteration of anyyywayyy whatever was a two-person show (performed by Maddie Hopfield and Ray Tsung-Jui Tsou) commissioned by Caterina Zevola for the inaugural Performissima at the Centre Wallonie Bruxelles in Paris in October 2024. This new commission premiering at Amant extends the piece to an hour and includes four more performers (Laurel Atwell, Sally Butin, Deja Rion and Fiona Smith).
When asked about the work’s title, Cohen said it refers to the frustration and despair they feel about the current state of the world; both a personal failing and cultural inability to “fully absorb the multiple crises that we are all experiencing.” A common response to crises, they’ve noticed, is to look away, to keep scrolling, to keep walking by. “For a lot of people it’s like ‘anyway, whatever.’”
Cohen’s rehearsal process is deeply collaborative, with dancers shaping movement phrases as part of an ongoing conversation. Photos: Andrew Hallinan
Cohen started working on the piece’s text-based score at the beginning of 2024. “I tend to think of myself as a channeler or a kind of conduit. Not only am I writing what’s on my mind, but I’m also accumulating language that then ends up in the writing itself.” Cohen reads voraciously and widely, and glimpses of those influences—ranging from science fiction writers to queer theorists to philosophers and poets—make their way into the footnotes of the score, which will be printed as a chapbook created by artist and poet Leslie Rosario-Olivo and distributed to the audience. Metallica lyrics and lines from Star Wars make their way in, too, as do excerpts of conversations and text exchanges with friends. “There’s brilliance there at times,” Cohen said, “in our conversations with people.”
The result is multilayered. “There’s writing about the genocide, but it’s not about that. There’s writing about my sex life, but it’s not about that. There’s writing about sex and queerness in general. It’s not about that. It’s this kind of mosaic of ideas that overlap and intersect.”
Cohen then brought the completed score into the rehearsals, though it was further edited as they all built the piece together. The performers’ slips of tongue, Cohen explained, often charged the writing with more energy and meaning.
The next step was creating the movement, which, for Cohen, is always a very collaborative process. They will offer a suggestion (like “What if we did some energetic ballet-like movements?” or “Do something a little like Graham.”), and the dancers will move around and say, “Like this?” This conversation continues until Cohen has shaped the movement into a phrase. “It’s like throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks,” they said. “I have to go through a lot of bad ideas to get to what makes sense stylistically.” The movement vocabulary, as wide-ranging as the text, draws from hip-hop, ballet, stage combat, modern dance and post-modern dance.
Along the way, Cohen merges the spoken text with the choreography in a way that isn’t redundant or interpretive. “We’re trying to devise movements that not only push back against the writing, but also amplify it in a different way…There are what I would call material juxtapositions of movement and sound.”
One way the performers achieve this juxtaposition is through specific tones of voice. They often employ certain registers that they’ve given labels to, like “internet voice,” “yoga mom voice” and “bro voice.” Universally recognizable tones that evince narrative but, in this case, are disconnected from any specific story. Sometimes the tone matches the text; sometimes not. Sometimes the tone matches the movement; sometimes not. There are common vernaculars–both sonically and physically–that appear and disappear within the work, portholes through which the audience can comfortably enter before realizing they actually have no idea where they are.
Slips, misreadings and improvisations are folded back into the score, amplifying the work’s energy rather than polishing it away. Photos: Andrew Hallinan
For example, the line “my roommate will be back soon so” feels, for many of us, familiar. We’ve all asked someone to leave without asking them to leave, or been awkwardly asked to leave ourselves. Originally, Butin said this with an “fboy” tone while embodying an “fboy,” which was overkill. Cohen decided to have Butin keep the tone but embody a fierce runway model while looking an audience member directly in the eye when saying it. At another point, Butin and Hopfield do a “ballet-adjacent phrase” while Tsung-Jui Tsou and Atwell try to bring everyone together. Butin punches Atwell in the stomach while crossing the stage, to emphasize the line “without suicide / with out WHAT.” The elegance of ballet is layered with the intense text and random physical violence in a way that doesn’t further any specific narrative, but offers, nevertheless, a strong statement.
The heart of the piece can be found in the text and movement, but design takes the performance to the next level. The cast will wear elevated streetwear created by New York-based designer Melitta Baumeister. And the lighting design, inspired by raves and queer nightlife spaces, is by Bessie-nominated Sarai Frazier.
It turns out anyyywayyy whatever isn’t one thing but all the things: poignant, political, funny, sexy, of-the-moment, intellectual, serious. It’s a wakeup call to our apathetic culture and also a reminder that we are not alone. That we are all in this together, for better or worse.
Barnett Cohen’s anyyywayyy whatever is at 306 Maujer Street, Brooklyn, on Friday, September 26 at 7:00 pm, and Saturday, September 27 at 4:00 pm and 7:00 pm.
In a true tale of self-determinism, viral comedian Jiaoying Summers made her career in comedy happen through sheer force of will.
“It was a lot of struggle in the beginning,” the digital content producer recalls. “I bought the club but I had zero experience in running a comedy club. I bought it for myself to get on stage.” “It was my first week after the open mic, that I realize it will take me 20 years to get [enough] hours under my belt. I was like, I do not have time to waste. So I bought a comedy club on Melrose like one week after I started doing comedy. It’s crazy – it was a clothing store! It was a for lease on Melrose, and I’m like, this is Melrose, it’s a good location. I went in and they had ugly clothes. I was like, ‘Oh bitch, you should not be selling clothes. I’ll take your lease.’”
The funny risk taker says the gambit paid off, and her now club The Hollywood Comedy is surviving and thriving.
“It took me a week to hire some Chinese people to renovate it into a little black box theater,” Summers jokes. “And I start hosting open mics, and back then, we had eight open mics a day. Every hour we have open mic. I host every hour.”
“Then pandemic came, four months later, everything close down. But I did not feel like I’ll give up comedy after pandemic. So I keep it. I keep selling my jewelry, my purse, to pay the rent. I go there every day to talk to the empty room. But then I get on stage and film myself doing my jokes. I posted them on Instagram, and TikTok, which wasn’t really popular so the [clips] never really did anything. But I realize all this material is about my life, and reliving the pain and vulnerability – and those are the jokes that worked. Those are the jokes that went viral for me.”
“I got to a million followers on TikTok during the pandemic, and I kind of build my audience. It makes it easier to go out and I start to get in the big clubs because I can sell tickets. I have gotten funny because of the amount of crowd work and stage time I have amassed under my belt. Even in pandemic, I was able to go on stage and post my jokes. I was very lucky to use social media and the social media audience helped me find my voice. They show me what is funny by making clips go viral.”
Now a headliner, Summers is returning for two nights at Punchline Houston on Friday, September 26 and Saturday September 27. “I love Houston!” the comic exclaims. “I played the Punchline last year around October, and I imported my boyfriend from Austin TX to Los Angeles, so Texas gave me a man. I love Texas.” The newest hour for Summers entitled What Spesie Are You? is an exploration of subjects that helped her climb the ranks on TikTok. “It will be my origin story including how I grew up in China and lots of religious trauma but we’ve made it into comedy gold! We laugh about all the things that have happened and what I’ve been a victim of. We use it to showcase my skills and resilience. I think it is going to be really fun to share a lot of things I haven’t shared before. I wanted to open my heart and be vulnerable. I think that is the best place to find good comedy, to say things you are embarrassed of and ashamed of and make it funny. People can connect with me, I think.”
Turning out new jokes is hard, but turning out new jokes from childhood trauma must be harder. However, for Summers, the gamble of people not connecting with new material is worth the risk of putting herself out there. “It is all how you say it, and the willingness to take that kind of risk,” she surmises. “Because I, unfortunately, am not perfect. You want to showcase yourself as a person who is successful and who has their shit together – but I have two DUIs. I have two divorces. I have two kids and I’m a single mother. I suffer from a bipolar disorder. And I also own a comedy club, that is a mess, but it just keep going. I don’t know when the toilets are broken and I’m paying nine times the water bill. So you try to find beauty in chaos, try to find funny in all this pain.”
“I think that is where you find the best stuff – when you are bravest to share with your audience. That’s when they know you are also human. They can feel like they can not be so judgmental of themselves and the mistakes they have made. If there is a second chance to make it right and be like, ‘Oh my God, I fucking suck.’ We all suck.” While Summers is embracing the suck of being imperfect – she also warns against others trying to turn their tragic backstories into stand-up material too quickly. “I think when I do materials about something traumatic, I have to make sure I have overcome that trauma,” she says. “If I have not overcome that trauma, the audience can feel it. They won’t laugh, they’ll be concerned about you. They know when you are not over it. You can’t talk about it, because you are still grieving inside. Your body is still carrying that pain. You have to go to therapy to really make your peace with it. Onstage, you have to make it funny.”
Summers speaks with clarity and confidence about her craft, despite her young age. She’s mostly self-taught, and unafraid to suggest that’s the only way to develop as a stand-up. “I tried to take a class,” she says, followed by a slight pause. “There’s something that I should not say, because it makes me a villain but… the best comedians are working. They’re not teaching anyone. I don’t want to be the person who said it, but I’m a Chinese savage, I’m gonna say it!” “The best advice I got, the advice I hear from people like Nikki Glaser or Tom Segura or Bobby Lee, the people who are working comedian legends, that was the best advice I got. But in the comedy clubs, [those that] taught, were like these angry comedians who never made it, saying you’ll never make it with an accent, or you can’t wear a dress on stage. If people think you are pretty, they will not listen to your jokes. You need to wear thick glasses like a nerd. They would just give you the most outrageous dumb advice. Are you kidding me? It was like everything that I am is wrong.
“But every real comedian would just tell me: just be you. Don’t pander to anyone and if they don’t like you, they don’t like you. They won’t like you if you are fake. They may if you are true. Don’t copy other people. If you don’t have a really good teacher, just avoid it.”
“The best way to be a good comedian is to get on stage. You can just sign up and go on stage every day. You will find your voice because the audience the person who will show you if you are funny or not. Pay attention. Tape your show. Study it. That’s the best advice for young comedians, not the don’t look like this or sound like that. It is very bad for your confidence. For the longest time, I was afraid of myself. My voice, my accent, how big I was on stage. Because I am a very big personality, but I try to make myself small so people can like me. But I never found my voice, I was struggling. Then I was like, fuck everything they said, and that’s when things started happening.” Jiaoying Summers’ performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. on Friday, September 26 and 7 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. on Saturday, September 27 at Punchline Houston, 1204 Caroline. For more information, visit punchlinehtx.com. $32-69
All was proceeding well. Morgese’s officers were on the case, and the migrants were behaving in an orderly manner. It was peaceful. A nice cruise in the Mediterranean. No signs of any of the Libyan fighters who Gaddafi threatened would arrive in Europe “like a swarm of locusts or bees.”
At around 11 a.m., a short, middle-aged man—from sub-Saharan Africa, Morgese guessed—approached the Italian Green Beret. Morgese looked like an obvious authority figure—muscular, tan, in camouflage combat fatigues with a green beret and a black holster with a gun.
“Water,” the man said. Part request, part demand.
Morgese had noticed the man before. He had been isolating himself from the others, pacing nervously along a corridor, reading a liturgical book of some sort. He gave the man a bottle of water and a serious look.
The man was thin and short, maybe five feet six inches tall, with heavy-lidded eyes, nostrils that flared, full lips, and a scraggly beard. He had a scar on his arm, one that Morgese recognized as consistent with a gunshot entry wound. In 1998, during an antidrug operation, Morgese had engaged in a firefight with a suspect whose leg was struck by a round from another officer’s Beretta pistol. He was familiar with scars caused by bullets.
Morgese gently grabbed the man’s arm and looked at the other side of it, seeing what looked like a larger, scarred-up exit hole.
“What happened?” Morgese asked him. “How did you get that?” The man looked away, pretending he hadn’t heard him.
“What happened?” Morgese asked again.
Nervously, the man began uttering phrases in Arabic and shaking his book.
Morgese told him to calm down and take a seat. He called for Ismail, a Somali interpreter who spoke Arabic and Hausa, a language used in parts of West Africa.
“Why are you so agitated?” Morgese asked, through Ismail. “How did you get those wounds?”
The odd and vaguely threatening little man explained: his name was Ibrahim Adnan Harun. He was Nigerian. He had recently arrived at Lampedusa aboard a boat.
And the scar?
That was from a gunshot. “American soldiers,” he said.
“Do you have any other wounds?” Morgese asked. “Where did this happen?”
The man who called himself Ibrahim Adnan Harun motioned for Morgese to follow him through a door to another part of the ship. There he lifted his shirt and turned around, displaying even more bullet scars on his back. Harun and Ismail began conversing in Hausa as Morgese watched. With each sentence Harun uttered, Ismail’s face grew more shocked, even horrified.
“What is he saying?” Morgese asked Ismail.
“He says he’s not a refugee, he’s an al Qaeda fighter,” Ismail said. “He fought American soldiers.”
Morgese’s mind instantly went to the threats Gaddafi would make to export the war in Libya to Europe by sending jihadis there. (“Jihad” literally means fight, battle, or holy war. In Islam, the greater jihad is the battle within oneself, while lesser jihad is physical war against others. Contemporary Islamist extremists mean it as holy war against nonbelievers, which is how the term is used here.) “Hundreds of Libyans will martyr in Europe,” the dictator warned. “I told you it is eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth.”
Manisha Krishnan: … which some human design followers believe that your spleen is a better guide than your gut. And so he ended up breaking it off with one of the women that he was dating in Love Is Blind because he said, “His spleen was silent.”
Zoë Schiffer: I was locked in for the first part of this. And then we got to the spleen thing. What does that mean? Is it literally a gut sense? What are they tapping into?
Manisha Krishnan: Honestly, it is really confusing because they have all of these rules around deconditioning yourself from essentially forces within you that don’t jive with who you really are, but the way that you decondition yourself seems to be in some cases very rigid. I saw one person on Reddit posting about how they only eat polenta because that’s the only ingredient that will allow them to become their truest self according to human design.
Zoë Schiffer: I do want to know, do you know what I am?
Manisha Krishnan: Yes.
Zoë Schiffer: Because you asked me my birthday yesterday, so I’m on the edge of my seat.
Manisha Krishnan: I did. I plugged it in. And you are a generator, which is an energy type defined with a sacral center characterized by a consistent self-sustaining life force—
Zoë Schiffer: Wow.
Manisha Krishnan: … that provides stamina and the capacity to do fulfilling work.
Zoë Schiffer: Did WIRED write this?
Manisha Krishnan: I know, I was just thinking that.
Zoë Schiffer: Well, great. I love that for myself. Coming up after the break, we’ll dive into the backlash that some people from graphic designers to high-profile entertainers have received after commenting on Charlie Kirk’s death.
[break]
Zoë Schiffer: Welcome back to Uncanny Valley. I’m Zoë Schiffer. I’m joined today by senior culture editor Manisha Krishnan. Manisha, the story that keeps on reverberating this week is that of Charlie Kirk’s death. Our colleague, Jake Lahut, has been covering how the Trump administration in the general right-wing base has maintained their position that Kirk’s death was a result of leftist ideology and maybe even a coordinated attack. Both of these claims have been debunked, but it’s done little to change people’s minds. And this week, you reported that different artists have been facing professional retaliation for voicing their opinions on Kirk. What did you find in your reporting?
Manisha Krishnan: There’s been a bunch of people from different industries that have lost their jobs over posting unsympathetically about Charlie Kirk’s death, from journalists to video game developers. But one that stuck out in my mind was I interviewed this trans writer who was doing a comic series for DC Comics. She referred to Charlie Kirk as a Nazi bitch after he died, and she was suspended on Bluesky for a week, and DC fired her and they’ve canceled the series. And that really stuck out to me because she has said that Charlie Kirk, he was staunchly anti-trans. I mean, he was anti a lot of things that weren’t a straight Christian white male, and he was pretty loud and proud about those views. And so I think it really does stick out to me because it’s almost like, are people expected to perform grief for someone who espoused hateful views towards the community that they’re part of, but it almost feels like this really, really hard line that a lot of corporations have taken. Making someone apologize is one thing, but literally disappearing art, canceling an entire series or South Park deciding not to re-air an episode about Charlie Kirk that he himself loved. He said he really liked it. I just think it goes a little bit beyond just reprimanding people.
NEW YORK (WABC) — The African American Day Parade (AADP) took to the streets in Harlem once again on Sunday in a celebration of Black culture, heritage and excellence.
This year marked the 56th anniversary of the parade, which took place along Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard between 111th and 137th streets.
WABC-TV Channel 7 was a proud sponsor of the parade, and streamed the event live. You can re-watch this year’s parade below:
The theme of this year’s parade was “Education is Our #1 Priority,” and will honor those who help uplift and empower the community through learning.
Among those being recognized included our very own Eyewitness News anchor Sandra Bookman, who will serve as one of the parade’s grand marshals.
Ahead of the event, Bookman spoke with Parade Chairman Yusuf Hasan and fellow Grand Marshal Dr. Bob Lee on an episode of Here and Now:
Chairman Yusuf Hasan and Grand Marshal Dr. Bob Lee join Here and Now to discuss the upcoming 56th annual African American Day Parade.
On the day before the parade, the AADP team hosted its third annual “Get Involved” Community Literacy, Health & Celebration of Culture event. Festivities will take place in the plaza of the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building on West 125th Street.
Have a breaking news tip or an idea for a story we should cover? Send it to Eyewitness News using the form below. If attaching a video or photo, terms of use apply.
As the procession of speakers made its way up the chain of conservative command, the service turned further towards setting a political agenda for the aftermath of Kirk’s murder. The goal now is “achieving victory in his name,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said.
Miller also made appeals to faith, reflecting in his speech on how the angels wept for Kirk. But the tears had turned into fire, he said, and “that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand.”
Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, speaks at his memorial service.
PATRICK T. FALLON/Getty Images
Donald Trump and Elon Musk shake hands during the public memorial service for Charlie Kirk.
CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/Getty Images
In this stew of rage and spirituality, the speakers built a cumulative testimony to Kirk’s own rhetorical style, as displayed on college campuses throughout the country during his advocacy career. It was, for all its provocations, a tactic that reached its way to the political approach of the White House’s senior most figures and had some apparent unifying effect on them. Shortly before the president spoke, Musk and Trump had what appeared to be a friendly reunion as they overlooked the service.
Kirk’s widow Erika, whom his organization Turning Point USA recently announced as his successor as CEO, was one of the day’s final two speakers, and struck a conciliatory note as she spoke of the suspect in Kirk’s murder. “I forgive him,” Erika said through tears. It had been her husband’s mission, she added, “to save young men just like the one who took his life.”
Addressing his and Kirk’s followers, Trump momentarily kept the temperature low, reflecting in sweeping terms on the activist’s legacy and his love for country. “This is not an arena, it’s a stadium,” he said, admiring Kirk’s reach.
But as he switched tacks, touting his plans to crack down on crime in Chicago and other punitive measures he had in mind for perceived adversaries, Trump claimed, smiling proudly, that there was a key difference between him and the college debate enthusiast he was mourning. The faithful tones yielded, as his remarks stretched on, to an oppositional stance.
“I can’t stand my opponent,” Trump told the audience.
The formula is simple: Combine the best-loved traits of J.R.R. Tolkien’s high fantasy and of modern romance novels, make the characters’ sex lives explicit and very detailed, and include a lot of descriptions of beautiful gowns and luxurious bathtubs. Put a lushly illustrated cover on the front. Back it up with authors who have very active social media presences, and get the ever-growing world of fans on BookTok (the book-focused corner of TikTok) and Goodreads to read and review. Call it romantasy or faerie smut—the new genre is everywhere.
Of course, it’s not really a new genre. I say that not because romantasy combines strands of several previously existing genres—romance, fantasy, and (often) horror. A new kind of pastiche still counts as something new. But literature that combines fantasy and sex is at least as old as the 12th century lais of Marie de France. In one such lai, Lanval, a knight in King Arthur’s court is wooed and seduced by a beautiful barely clad fairy maiden he meets in an ornate golden tent in a meadow. Yonec tells of an unhappily married young woman whose lover transforms himself into a bird to fly in her window. Bisclavret is the story of a werewolf baron who is betrayed by his human wife. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream shows the audience Titania, the fairy queen, and the very human weaver Nick Bottom in love and in bed. And Christina Rossetti’s poem Goblin Market is a Victorian fever dream about the pleasures and consequences of sucking on goblin fruit.
The world of faerie is the world of the other, the mysterious, the forbidden. And all of that is sexy and dangerous in ways that have appealed to humans for a very long time. It’s really only with the rise of sharp genre distinctions—evidenced by bookstore section headings that cloister romance, fantasy, and science fiction from one another—that this kind of erotic, adventurous, magical melange became uncategorizable and thus unmarketable. (I’m inclined to think that the way Amazon and other online bookstores break down the distinction between genres and sections of a traditional bookstore might be a small technical driver for the return of romantasy.)
Technical questions aside, there may be something uniquely 2025 about the way romantasy has come roaring back to life. The overturning of Roe v. Wade and the rise of the hard right have put questions of women’s autonomy and power at the center of American political and cultural discussions. Though it may surprise those who haven’t read much in the genre, romantasy puts those questions right in the center of its texts.
The classic plotline of a generic romantasy novel runs something like this: A young woman who is overlooked and undervalued in her normal life enters a different, magical world where she is a being of extraordinary abilities. She attracts a passionate and highly desirable partner who introduces her to sexual heights she has never before experienced while also drawing her into political and military intrigues that allow her to utilize her newly valuable abilities. Over the course of the story, there will be heartbreak and separation, but an eventual happily ever after is nearly certain.
There is nothing revolutionary about the standard romantasy plotline. Its basic steps align precisely with Joseph Campbell’s idea of the “hero’s journey,” marked by separation from a familiar environment, initiation into a new one, and a return to the old world once the hero has been transformed by experience. Swap in hungry hobbits for horny heroines and you have Tolkien. Subtract the magic and you have the plot of Jane Eyre. Subtract the sex and you have The Chronicles of Narnia. But fantasy novels that focus on an adult female lead character and her journey and desires, while far more common than they were when I began reading them in the ’70s and ’80s, still feel a bit radical, just by virtue of taking a woman’s point of view.
It is the genre’s focus on transformation, stepping into power, and recognition that seems to me to be its most compelling aspect for readers right now. While traditional fairy tales often focus on a magical transformation that comes from outside the main character—think of Cinderella’s gown and coach, or the frog who is changed into a prince—romantasy often deals with a character whose strong sense of self remains unchanged, but whose importance, skills, and even physical beauty change in value as she enters a new world.
This moment where the undervalued becomes valued may be the defining dream of fiction produced for a largely female audience. The best-selling series A Court of Thorns and Roses features a protagonist, Feyre, who begins the series as a neglected and overworked middle sister, hunting game to feed her impoverished and unappreciative family. By the end of the first three books in the series, she is the high lady of the Night Court. She has used her hunting skills to vanquish terrifying monsters, her intellect to outsmart several enemies, and a physical attractiveness that no one has ever noticed before to win the love of two faerie high lords. She has also died and been resurrected, brought her family into the faerie world with her, fought in several military campaigns, and (in a classic fairy-tale trope) seen her small kindnesses to magical creatures repaid with assistance at crucial moments. She says of herself, by the end of the second installment of the series, “No one was my master—but I might be master of everything, if I wished. If I dared.”
Rebecca Yarros’ The Empyrean series presents us with a heroine with a similar trajectory. Violet Sorrengail, who has studied her whole life to be a scribe, is thrust by her mother into a military college that trains cadets to partner with dragons for battle. Suffering from a mysterious ailment that causes her constant pain and frequent joint dislocations (based on the author’s own experience with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome), Violet seems like the least likely survivor of the war college’s vicious training. Not only does she survive, but she also bonds with the rarest and most powerful type of dragon. And then she bonds with a second dragon, of a type no one has ever bonded with before, and is told, “I waited six hundred and fifty years to hatch. Waited until your eighteenth summer, when I heard our elders talk about the weakling daughter of their general, the girl forecasted to become the head of the scribes, and I knew. You would have the mind of a scribe and the heart of a rider. You would be mine.” Violet develops a series of increasingly impressive magical powers, attracts the love of a (nearly equally powered) fellow soldier who turns out to be a duke, restores the protective wards around her country, battles vicious enemies, and becomes an impressive military strategist, often using her formerly undervalued scribal skills to find creative and unexpected solutions to political and military problems.
That both these series place their heroines into positions where they must be politically and militarily savvy is, I think, no accident. Readers of this fiction grew up on epic fantasy novels with complex world-building and political wrangling, and they want the same attention to detail from romantasy. This means that romantasy heroines must, in general, be prepared to tangle with warring fairy courts, espionage, maintaining magical defenses and supply lines for troops, and diplomacy in cultures and languages that are wildly alien to their own. Romantasy heroines have personal problems to solve that matter intensely to them, but they are equally involved in the world-altering problems that surround them. Just as in the real world, the personal and the political both demand the heroine’s attention and talents. In the world of romantasy, it is possible to triumph simultaneously at both. Romantasy heroines can have it all and a dragon, too.
As I read through both series and a selection of other romantasy novels while researching for this article, I kept thinking of economist Claudia Goldin and her lecture, “The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women’s Employment, Education, and Family.” Goldin observes that women’s gradual move into the labor force “was a change from agents who work because they and their families ‘need the money’ to those who are employed, at least in part, because occupation and employment define one’s fundamental identity and societal worth.”
In romantasy, the work of the hero and heroine often intertwines as they try to save the world, protect their communities, discover hidden knowledge, or generally engage in a quest. Importantly, it gives them a project that they are working on together. Work has always played an underappreciated role in romantic fiction. But as contemporary politics mean that male and female spheres of interest and influence feel increasingly separate, the appeal of reading about that kind of shared project only increases. Istvhan, the berserker knight, and Clara, the nun and werebear, from T. Kingfisher’s Paladin’s Strength have unique capacities for destruction that often go unappreciated by the rest of the world. As a team, they are a well-matched delight, wreaking mayhem when necessary and fighting together with élan.
“Protect the nun!” roared Istvhan, yanking his sword free.
“Protect your own damn self!” Clara roared back.
Romantasy heroines are not sidelined in politics or in battle. They are equal, even superior partners.
It’s not all violence, either. There is an entire subgenre of romantasy dedicated to heroines who are busy building small businesses. Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree, for example, tells the story of an orc who is retired from mercenary work and just wants to open a coffee shop. A sequel explores the same orc’s stint of working in a bookshop while recuperating from battle injuries. That novel’s best-known tagline, “Things don’t have to stay what they started out as,” is a fairly good shorthand for Goldin’s quiet revolution.
Even now that we are well-established in the labor force, women obviously still find stories about women finding identity and worth through occupation and employment enormously compelling. Women who long to achieve that kind of satisfaction are inspired by reading stories of others doing the same. It is this longing that makes stories of entrepreneurs so important and popular. It is this longing that drives the success of dubious multilevel marketing companies that persuade aspiring girlbosses that they can become millionaires by selling leggings. And it is this longing that fuels romantasy, where the jobs may be slightly less plausible but the quest for identity and desire for worth are the same.
That same longing for recognition fuels the romantic and erotic relationships in romantasy. While traditional fantasy may sometimes contain romantic elements, romantasy treats the romantic and erotic desires of its characters as equally important to their quest to resolve the magical and political tumult that surrounds them. A friend of mine who is a devoted romantasy fan noted that the love interests of these books are often mysterious and emotionally remote “damaged” characters who open up to only one person—the previously overlooked heroine. His attention, given to no one else, is another indication of her unique value. And his ability to see how remarkable she is marks him out as unusual and worthy of love as well.
The intense romantic bonds between the heroes and heroines of romantasy are often depicted not just in emotional terms, but also as part of their magic. Frequently, they are able to read one another’s minds, telepathically communicate over long distances, and strengthen one another’s individual magical gifts. It is not far from Cathy’s insistence in Wuthering Heights that, “I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don’t talk of our separation again: it is impracticable.” The subgenre of romantasy that focuses on shape-shifters like werewolves and other human/beast hybrids makes much of a mysticized version of animal pair-bonding when it explores its characters’ romantic connections. There can be no more intimate connection imaginable than to have a partner who is destined to you by both fate and pheromones, who can read your mind, and who can communicate with you when no one else can.
The erotic scenes between these characters are often extremely explicit, and they often explore kinky and alternative sexualities. Romantasy is a genre where erotic and emotional combinations of all genders, species, and magical races are embraced with enthusiasm and delight. Many discussions of the genre express feminist qualms over the way that the male heroes are supportive of their high-powered partners outside the bedroom, but inclined to dominate them in bed. It’s a reasonable point. But these books revel in the sexiness of explicit consent. That erotic dynamic of exploring and experimenting with the taboo aligns with the way the genre as a whole plays with questions of what it means to have power and to be powerless. In the same way romantasy heroines shift from powerless to powerful as they enter the world of magic, their erotic life enables them, and the reader, to explore those changes in a physical context.
Those explorations can be very dark indeed. The vampire romances that seemed so edgy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight are weak tea for romantasy readers. Laura Thalassa’s The Four Horsemen series takes the incarnations of Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death as its romantic heroes. Kingdom of the Wicked has a prince of hell as the romantic lead. The darker the hero, the more likely one is to run into the recurring romantasy trope of a woman who can take endless damage, often at the hands of a sexual partner, and bounce back physically and emotionally. It will be a long time before I recover from reading Lindsay Straube’s Kiss of the Basilisk, where a woman is so violently mated by her shape-shifting partner that her pelvis breaks. A recent conversation with some horror writers, however, makes me wonder whether writers who eroticize this kind of violence are using it as a way to cope with increasingly threatening sexual politics. Getting the monster to fall in love with you is one way to solve the problem of a culture that sees you as prey.
Read too much romantasy in too little time, and all the dark faerie lords and maladroit human women with special gifts begin to melt together. You’ll begin to notice the sometimes awkward juxtaposition of Instagram-inspired fantasies of a magical good life marked by glamorous gowns, palaces, jewels—all those bathtubs!—and the rugged woman warrior tropes borrowed from dystopian fiction. These books are fantasies of infinite luxury and of rugged survival against all odds at the same time. Part of the appeal, I suspect, is that these heroines are simultaneously ready for a Vogue cover shoot and drenched in the blood of their enemies.
Like other kinds of romance, romantasy is escapist fiction, and that’s always easy to mock. But the interesting thing about romantasy is that its readers know that. Their TikTok videos and commentary on Goodreads and elsewhere make it clear that the readers love these books—often passionately—but they also read them with a critical mindset and very little patience for authors they don’t respect. Yarros, in particular, has come under fire online for a ludicrously overpowered heroine and a plot that, readers argue, has been stitched together from elements of previous successful series.
But that sharply critical eye doesn’t prevent romantasy readers from defending the genre against all outside detractors. Those who write articles with titles like “The Porn-Brained Women of Monster Smut” that criticize the “spice level” of romantasy or moralize about it as just “pornography for women” are likely to be reminded that the multibillion-dollar pornography industry caters almost exclusively to men. Readers will point out that the romantasy industry’s estimated value of $610 million is nothing in comparison. Is it targeted because it’s largely written by women, for women, with women’s desires at the forefront? Surely, even the most explicit faerie sex scenes one can imagine have analogs in porn films or in the fantasy novels of George R.R. Martin. I was pointed to the pelvis-shattering violence of Kiss of the Basilisk, in fact, because it had inspired such a vigorous online discussion on exactly these lines.
Readers don’t just consume these books. They debate and discuss them, trace the fairy tales and myths that lie behind them, speculate about future series installments, and put that discussion up online. That community is at least as important to the readers as the books are. Readers have countless stories of making friends in online chats and in the aisles of bookstores as they find others who are browsing the same sections. And the upcoming release of a romantasy novel that began as a darkly explicit work of Harry Potter fan fiction reminds readers that their favorite genre belongs to its fans in a way that most other genres do not.
Popular culture—art, music, television, film, and yes, romantasy—can tell us a lot about what we value enough to spend time and money on. It can tell us even more about our wishful thinking. Mysterious magical beings will always be sexy. But right now, romantasy might be telling us how much we wish for a world where the things that make us weird turn out to be the things that make us special and lovable. And maybe also for a dragon.
This article originally appeared in print under the headline “Like Tolkien, but the Elves Have More Sex.”
The jury, headed by former Cannes Festival president Pierre Lescure, includes a number of leading figures from the world of cinema: actress Camille Cottin, who was on our cover just a few months ago, will soon be starring in Pierre Schoeller’s Rembrandt; Alice Winocour, whose film Couture, starring Angelina Jolie, is eagerly awaited (spoiler: we’ve seen it, and it’s a great film); successful screenwriter Noé Debré, who is also the director of A Good Jewish Boy;Thibault Gast, producer of, among others, Fresh Water for Flowers, the forthcoming adaptation of Valérie Perrin’s bestseller; and Sayyid El Alami, a young actor introduced in Oussekine, and soon to headline Fief, the adaptation of David Lopez’s novel. Two authors will be representing the literary world: Anne Berest, the novelist who just released Finistère and wrote the script for Rebecca Zlotowski’s next film, A Private Life; and Karine Tuil, whose Les Choses Humaines was brought to the screen by Yvan Attal in The Accusation. Literary podcast producer Léa Marchetti, VF France’s literary page contributor, will complete this prestigious jury. The three winners will be announced on October 16 at an awards ceremony to be held in the salons of the Paris’s glamorous Le Meurice Hotel.
The launch of this award is also an opportunity to introduce a new feature on our pages. Each month, a director will explain the adaptation of his or her dreams. As Julien Gracq once said, “For a novel to become a really good film, the film has to be something else.” Our aim is twofold: to highlight great books before dreaming up great films.
The Nominees: thirteen books across three categories
Novel Tssitssi, Claire Castillon (Gallimard) La Condition artificielle, Paul Monterey (Le Cherche Midi) La Bonne Mère, Mathilda Di Matteo (L’Iconoclaste) Le monde est fatigué, Joseph Incardona (Finitude)
Non-fiction De silence et d’or, Ivan Butel (Globe) La Jeune Fille et la mort, Negar Haeri (Seuil) Vasarely, l’héritage maudit, Julie Malaure (Le Cherche Midi) Goutted’Or connexion, Tess and Marc Fernandez (Flammarion) Mon vrai nom est Elisabeth, Adèle Yon (Le Sous-Sol)
Graphic novels Les gorilles du général, Julien Telo and Xavier Dorison (Casterman) Albertine a disparu, Vincenzo Bizzarri, François Vignolle and Vincent Guerrier (Glénat) Sanglier, Lisa Blumen (L’Employé du Moi) Pyongyang parano, Emmanuelle Delacomptée, Antoine Dreyfus and Fanny Briant (Marabulles)
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Many know Dave Portnoy as the multi-millionaire founder of Barstool Sports, the unapologetically irreverent digital media empire. But to millions more, he’s the face behind the viral One Bite Pizza Reviews on YouTube, where he travels the country rating pizzerias on a strict 1–10 scale (decimals included).
What began in 2017 as a fun viral series has grown into a culinary kingmaker, with Portnoy’s verdict capable of making — or breaking — a shop overnight. That phenomenon has expanded into a live event, the One Bite Pizza Fest, which marked its third anniversary in New York on Saturday, September 13, drawing 10,000 fans to sample pies from more than 40 of the world’s most iconic pizzerias — all hand-picked by Portnoy himself.
The event, produced in partnership with Medium Rare, reflects a bigger shift in digital media: turning online content into live experiences. Barstool has been at the forefront, building events around its podcasts — from the Call Her Daddy “Unwell Tour” to the Chicklets Cup for Spittin’ Chicklets. At first, it might seem counterintuitive for a digitally native brand to double down on in-person programming. In reality, it’s become both a core part of Barstool’s content strategy and a key performance indicator of its success.
Streaming a YouTube series like One Bite with Dave Portnoy while folding laundry doesn’t necessarily make someone a die-hard fan. True loyalty shows when people are willing to buy a ticket, show up, and spend real time with the brand.
That shift transforms a community from a list of usernames into a packed arena of people who can actually connect and bond over a shared experience.
For sponsors, One Bite Pizza Fest is a dream platform. Pepsi, Ninja and Bilt were among the brands that activated in creative ways. Ninja used the event to showcase its new 5-in-1 pizza oven, giving pizza fans a firsthand look at a new product designed for their tastes. Pepsi kept attendees refreshed with complimentary drinks, building goodwill with nearly 10,000 festival-goers.
While these companies clearly align with the theme of pizza, several other sponsors might be more surprising. Bilt returned as the official rewards partner, creating an entire “Neighborhood” filled with exclusive perks like expedited lines and even allowing members to redeem points for tickets.
Sponsors may keep the lights on at the One Bite Pizza Festival, but they don’t feed the ravenous attendees. That title goes to the real stars of the event: the restaurants. Many travel from out of state to hand out free slices to massive crowds — all while being surrounded by direct competitors. Some might call it a food fair. Others could interpret it as a cage match for pizzerias.
While every spot brought its best, a few stood above the rest. In general admission, Lucali, Frank Pepe’s, and Di Fara each dished out more than 10,000 slices. In VIP, Ceres Pizza stole the show — thanks to Portnoy’s 9.2 rating — cementing its spot as the festival’s most in-demand pie and underscoring just how much influence his reviews hold.
One Bite Pizza Fest is more than just a giant pizza party. It’s a testament to the brand loyalty Portnoy has cultivated over years of creating online. By taking his digital show into the real world, Portnoy continues to strengthen the community he’s built—while bolstering dozens of small businesses in the process. And it all starts with just one bite.
The festival unfolded across two sessions. Fans could choose between afternoon or evening tickets, priced at $179.99, or upgrade to VIP experiences at $649.99 that include early access and an open bar. Session one runs from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., with VIPs entering at 12:30. Session two follows a similar format, opening at 6:00 p.m. and running until 9:30, with VIP access beginning half an hour earlier.
Many know Dave Portnoy as the multi-millionaire founder of Barstool Sports, the unapologetically irreverent digital media empire. But to millions more, he’s the face behind the viral One Bite Pizza Reviews on YouTube, where he travels the country rating pizzerias on a strict 1–10 scale (decimals included).
What began in 2017 as a fun viral series has grown into a culinary kingmaker, with Portnoy’s verdict capable of making — or breaking — a shop overnight. That phenomenon has expanded into a live event, the One Bite Pizza Fest, which marked its third anniversary in New York on Saturday, September 13, drawing 10,000 fans to sample pies from more than 40 of the world’s most iconic pizzerias — all hand-picked by Portnoy himself.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
We’re trained to avoid failure like it’s a contagious disease.
At school, failing wasn’t just about getting a bad grade — it was about getting labeled. If you didn’t pass, you weren’t just “behind,” you were branded. Pulled into extra classes, singled out in front of your peers and whispered about in the hallways. It can feel like public shame dressed up as education.
When you grow up in that kind of system, what you learn fast is: Don’t mess up. Don’t take risks. Don’t give anyone a reason to think less of you. And the biggest lesson? Stay in your lane.
The problem is that that mindset doesn’t prepare you for the real world — especially if you want to lead, build or create anything meaningful. Because here’s the truth: If you’re afraid to fail, you’ll never truly succeed.
Fear of failure isn’t just about the actual mistake — it’s about the imagined fallout.
What will people think?
Will they see me as incompetent? Reckless? Stupid?
Will this cost me my reputation, my relationships, my livelihood?
And because those fears feel heavy and real, we avoid taking the shot. We stay where it’s “safe,” never realizing that “safe” is just a slow, quiet way to fail anyway.
As leaders, that fear can be deadly. It keeps us from innovating, from hiring bold talent, from experimenting with new products or ideas. It makes us reactive instead of proactive. And when the market shifts — as it always does — the leaders who’ve been too scared to risk anything are the ones left scrambling.
How I learned to get comfortable with losing
The real turning point for me wasn’t some massive success — it was being okay with losing. But that didn’t happen overnight.
When I started my business, I brought that school-based fear of failure right along with me. I worried about how my decisions would look. I avoided risks that felt “too visible.” I overworked myself trying to make sure nothing went wrong — and when something inevitably did, I beat myself up for weeks.
But here’s what changed everything: I realized failure without feedback is just a loss. But failure with insight? That’s an investment.
When you stop seeing failure as a verdict and start treating it as raw material, it becomes the most valuable thing you have.
Over the last eight years, I’ve:
Mismanaged people and learned how to lead better.
Made bad hires and learned how to recruit with sharper instincts.
Invested in projects that flopped and learned where my market actually is.
Lost more money (and time) than I’d like to admit — and learned exactly how to make it back (and more).
None of those lessons came from the times things went perfectly. Every single one was purchased with the currency of failure.
Part of why this mindset is so hard to adopt is that it’s almost the opposite of what we were trained to believe.
Our education system rewards perfection and punishes missteps. You’re graded on what you got right, not on how many creative attempts you made. You’re celebrated for the A, not for the questions you dared to ask or the risks you took to get there.
And that’s fine if your career goal is “ace tests forever.” But in real life, success is about trying, adapting and trying again — fast. It’s about iteration, not immaculate execution on the first go.
If you’ve ever wondered why so many talented people never reach their potential, this is it. They’ve been conditioned to fear the first step because they’ve been conditioned to fear the stumble.
The leader’s advantage: Failing faster
Here’s the mindset shift that’s changed everything for me: Don’t run from failure — run toward it.
When you take a calculated risk and it doesn’t work out, you gain information your competitors don’t have. You see where the potholes are. You understand the dynamics of your market or your team in a way you simply can’t from the sidelines.
Failure speeds up your feedback loop. And in business, speed of learning is a competitive advantage.
When I stopped worrying about how failure looked and started focusing on what it taught, I moved faster. My team moved faster. We became more willing to experiment, to test ideas, to pivot quickly.
And here’s the irony: The more comfortable I got with failing, the less I actually failed in ways that mattered. Why? Because the lessons compound. The insight you gain from one mistake prevents five more down the line.
Turning failure into fuel
If you’re looking for practical ways to reframe failure, here’s what’s worked for me:
Separate the event from your identity. Failing at something doesn’t make you a failure. It makes you a human who’s gathering data.
Ask better post-mortem questions. Instead of “Why did I mess up?” ask “What specifically did I learn, and how will I apply it next time?”
Take the hit, then take the action. Feel the sting, but don’t camp there. Apply the lesson as quickly as possible so it becomes forward motion.
Make it visible for your team. When leaders are open about their own missteps, it gives everyone else permission to try without fear.
At the end of the day, the point isn’t to fail for failure’s sake. The point is to strip failure of its power over you so you can move without hesitation.
If there’s one mindset that’s been critical to my success, it’s this: Be okay with failing — because the lesson you learn is worth more than the hit you take.
The faster you embrace that truth, the faster you’ll grow — not just as a leader, but as a human being who’s willing to show up, take the shot and trust that even if you miss, you’re still moving forward.
We’re trained to avoid failure like it’s a contagious disease.
At school, failing wasn’t just about getting a bad grade — it was about getting labeled. If you didn’t pass, you weren’t just “behind,” you were branded. Pulled into extra classes, singled out in front of your peers and whispered about in the hallways. It can feel like public shame dressed up as education.
When you grow up in that kind of system, what you learn fast is: Don’t mess up. Don’t take risks. Don’t give anyone a reason to think less of you. And the biggest lesson? Stay in your lane.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
German Sierra, founder of Pana Food Truck in Santa Cruz, California, never imagined his craving for a childhood comfort food would lead him to build a thriving business with a loyal following and the distinction of Yelp’s Top 100 Food Trucks.
“My brother and I came to the United States in 2016 [from Venezuela],” he says. “There weren’t any arepas. We actually eat arepas every day in Venezuela, so we needed them. My brother was like, ‘Hey, why don’t we make some arepas and take them to the streets, and maybe people will buy them?’”
Armed with foil-wrapped arepas and homemade Venezuelan juices, the brothers set up outside a supermarket. They didn’t sell a single one. A police officer stopped them, asking for a permit they didn’t know they needed. Instead of giving up, Sierra gave the food away and kept searching for a way forward.
“Sometimes there’s a little miscommunication between entities. Sometimes the health department will [have] different rules than the city,” Sierra says, describing the challenges he faced trying to get his business off the ground. “There are specific places to park. You cannot park everywhere because there’s gonna be competition with restaurants.”
As a business with one core offering, Sierra had to sell the value of arepas to customers who had never heard of them.
“It was hard in the beginning — and [is] still hard — to convince people why we don’t have other dishes,” Sierra says. “We wanted to focus on arepas [so] there is no confusion of what we sell, and it’s memorable.”
Small adjustments, like listing arepas as “chicken” or “beef” on the menu, helped introduce the dish to American diners and reduce confusion without losing cultural authenticity. “When customers come, they want 30-second decisions — no half an hour figuring out the menu and what to get,” Sierra says.
As word spread, Sierra focused on making connections with customers, pairing education about the food with free samples to encourage repeat visits. Early on, he recognized that an excellent customer experience made people more likely to choose Pana over another restaurant.
“I didn’t wanna be just in the food truck business,” he says. “I want to be in the heart-warming business, because the food makes your heart warm. That’s the emotion I want to create every time.”
Now celebrating six years in business, Pana continues to grow while staying true to its roots. In 2025, Sierra and his wife, Gabriella Ramirez, opened their first brick-and-mortar restaurant in downtown Santa Cruz. “It wasn’t an overnight success, and we’re still growing and improving,” Sierra says. “We are just a baby, and there’s so much that we can change and improve.”
For Sierra, every arepa is a chance to share a piece of home, and to build what he calls “an arepa empire, one arepa at a time.”
After turning a craving for arepas into one of Yelp’s Top 100 Food Trucks of 2025 and opening a brick-and-mortar, Sierra’s advice for current and future business owners is clear:
Start small but stay consistent. Break overwhelming challenges into smaller steps and commit to showing up for your customers every day.
Adapt to your audience while staying authentic.Customer education can help your audience understand new offerings and grow goodwill in your community.
Lead with generosity. Warm service and meaningful interactions matter just as much as what’s on the menu. Customers return not only for flavor, but also for connection.
Think about the big picture. For Sierra, selling arepas was never just about food — it was about creating heart-warming experiences. Any platform, whether it’s a food truck or restaurant, can be a vehicle to share your mission.
Play the long game. Building something meaningful takes time, patience and passion. If your business isn’t an immediate success, research the steps you’ll need to take to achieve smaller goals that get you closer to your vision.
Watch the episode above to hear directly from German Sierra, and subscribe to Behind the Review for more from new business owners and reviewers every Wednesday.
Editorial contributions by Jiah Choe and Kristi Lindahl
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Most leaders know the frustration of wasted meetings. Long agendas, too many attendees and little to show for hours lost. For one group of senior leaders I worked with, this wasn’t just an annoyance. It was cutting into strategy time, slowing down decisions and draining energy across the business.
In less than a year, we cut their meeting time in half. Each leader won back more than 10 hours every week, and the organization became faster, clearer and more accountable.
Here’s how it happened, and how you can do the same.
The problem: Meetings controlled the leaders instead of the leaders being in charge
This team was leading a complex global transformation across three regions. Their calendars were wall-to-wall with standing meetings, catch-ups and recurring calls. People often left with unclear decisions, leading to more follow-up meetings just to fix what hadn’t been resolved the first time.
The result was lost time, slow decisions and a sense that no one could ever get ahead. The leaders were spending more time managing meetings than leading the business. Over time, even talented people became frustrated. Some started blocking out fake “focus time” just to survive. Others disengaged quietly, attending meetings but contributing very little because they no longer believed anything would change.
That loss of energy was as damaging as the loss of time.
Step 1: Define what deserves a meeting
We started by asking a simple question: Does this really need to be a meeting?
Many recurring calls existed because “We’ve always had them.” That logic had never been challenged. We cut every meeting that wasn’t tied to a decision, a problem that needed solving or collaboration that truly benefited from live discussion.
Updates that could be shared in writing were moved to a short weekly summary. Everyone received the same information, but they could read it in minutes instead of sitting through another call.
One senior manager told me later that this was the first time in years he could start his day by planning priorities instead of bracing for back-to-back calls. That shift gave him more control and a clearer sense of direction.
This step alone cleared out hours from everyone’s calendar. It also reframed meetings as intentional choices rather than habits carried over from the past.
Step 2: Put guardrails on time and attendance
Next, we established strict rules.
Meetings defaulted to 30 minutes. Longer sessions had to be justified. Every meeting required a clear lead who owned the agenda, kept the conversation on track and confirmed next steps.
Attendance rules changed, too. Instead of large calls with every stakeholder, we invited only the people who were critical to the discussion. If input was needed later, it was requested offline.
This change reduced group fatigue and raised accountability. Smaller groups made faster decisions. Leaders also realized that not being invited to a meeting wasn’t exclusion; it was respect for their time.
One hidden reason meetings drag on is that people leave without clarity. That lack of closure is what fuels the cycle of repeat conversations.
We solved this by introducing a simple “decision log.” Every meeting ended with three key things:
The decision made
The identified owner
The next step
It took discipline, but once the team adjusted, decisions stopped bouncing around. Follow-up meetings shrank because everyone knew who was responsible and by when. Teams didn’t have to revisit the same issue over and over.
The decision log also became a leadership tool. Leaders could review it weekly to see what was moving forward and what was stalling. That visibility improved accountability across the entire transformation.
Step 4: Track the wins
We measured meeting time before and after.
Leaders logged their weekly hours, and within weeks the difference was clear. By the end of 12 months, meeting hours had dropped by more than 50%. On average, each leader reclaimed over 10 hours a week.
The biggest win wasn’t just time. It was energy. Leaders felt less drained and more able to focus on the work that actually moved the business forward. Several commented that they finally ended their week with a sense of progress instead of exhaustion.
One leader said she could finally prepare properly for board discussions because she had blocks of uninterrupted time again. Another shared that his team trusted the process more because decisions no longer shifted or disappeared. These were small cultural shifts that created lasting impact.
The human side of fewer meetings
It’s easy to think of meeting reduction as a numbers game, but the benefits go much deeper. With fewer meetings, leaders gained the space to think, plan and lead. They could show up with more presence in the meetings that remained because they weren’t already depleted.
This had an impact on trust. People began to believe in the process because they saw that decisions stuck and time wasn’t wasted. That trust built momentum. Leaders became known for clarity instead of endless discussion.
When people feel their time is respected, they give more energy back to the work. That cultural benefit often matters more than the hours saved.
From this experience, three lessons stood out.
Treat time as a resource. If a meeting doesn’t create value, it’s a cost.
Put strict guardrails around time and attendance. Meetings expand to the size you allow.
Standardize how decisions are made and captured. Without this, meetings repeat themselves.
These aren’t complex ideas, but they require discipline. Leaders who apply them consistently change not only their calendars but their culture.
Look at your own calendar and ask yourself three questions:
Which meetings exist only out of habit?
Which can be replaced with a short written update?
Where do decisions get lost, forcing repeat conversations?
Answering those questions honestly is the first step to cutting your meeting load in half and winning back the hours you need most.
Try applying one change in the next week. Cancel a standing call that adds little value. Shorten a 60-minute meeting to 30. End every meeting with a clear decision and next step. These small shifts build confidence, and once you see the results, it becomes easier to apply the larger changes.
The point of cutting meetings is not to slash your calendar for the sake of it. The goal is to create space for the work that matters most. When leaders reclaim their time, they gain clarity, energy and the ability to lead with focus instead of reacting to every demand.
Start with your calendar. Once you take charge of your time, every other part of your leadership gets stronger too.
Most leaders know the frustration of wasted meetings. Long agendas, too many attendees and little to show for hours lost. For one group of senior leaders I worked with, this wasn’t just an annoyance. It was cutting into strategy time, slowing down decisions and draining energy across the business.
In less than a year, we cut their meeting time in half. Each leader won back more than 10 hours every week, and the organization became faster, clearer and more accountable.
Here’s how it happened, and how you can do the same.
