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[0:00] Martín Acuña: Hi, everyone. I am Martín Acuña, and you are listening to Backstage Talk.

[0:16] Martín Acuña: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Backstage Talk. Today, I am really excited to have over someone that I not only admire a lot, but I can also call her my friend. I have here with me Micayla Brewster. She is a freelance social media manager who oversees the digital presence of brands within the world of arts and culture. Her past and current clients range from musicals to museums, books to brands, podcasts to performers, films to forums on advocacy, just to name a few. She is a former account manager at Marathon Digital, where she led innovative social media campaigns for shows such as Hamilton, Hadestown, Be More Chill, and Freestyle Love Supreme. Honestly, Micayla had my dream job.

I know I've said this a couple of times, but I will keep doing it. I have the honor of having the incredible Micayla Brewster at the show. I first knew about her through Page to Stage. Shout out to Brian and Mary for her episode on their podcast show. Micayla, I am so excited to have you here. How are you?

[1:39] Micayla Brewster: I am fantastic. My day was already going great, and then your face is now in front of me, so I'm just thrilled. Thank you so much.

[1:46] Martín Acuña: First thing I want to ask you is, who are you? Besides being a digital nomad, besides working in social media in the arts and entertainment world, what else can you tell us about you?

[1:59] Micayla Brewster: Who am I? Isn't that what we're all trying to ask? I think first and foremost, I'm somebody who just loves creativity, and I love thinking outside of the box. I think in everything that I do, I just try to find the most creativity in that. Because of that, I have found myself in an industry such as Broadway, where I get to work with some of the most talented people in the entire world, on stage, off stage, all over. Also, in the specific industry of social media management, which I see as really just an opportunity for boundless creativity, because everyone is given these platforms, and the ways everyone uses it is so different, and constantly evolving, and constantly inspiring me and the content that I want to create.

I have answered your question in the framework of my job, which is a great segue into the rest of me, because yeah, that was one thing. I think during the pandemic, when I was working on all of those shows, and I was having all these amazing experiences working at Marathon Digital, and then I was reframing my life, thinking through what pivot I might want to make. One of the big questions I was asking myself was, who are you if you are not working, if you are not behind the phone, and paying attention to all of that? I think that was one of the main reasons why I really wanted to embrace this digital nomad lifestyle, and find things outside of work that inspired me, and gave me creativity. I think being able to explore different cultures, and see the intersections between things that I relate to, and get to feel at home in this place that I am not from, but then also feel super not a part of a culture, and feel very different, and have all of those experiences.

It's like, I don't know, again, it just feels like this widening of a perspective, and that's all I ever want to do. I think that's me. I still talked about my work and being a digital nomad, but that's pretty much what I do most of my days.

[4:37] Martín Acuña: I love that. I love that. What would be a random fun fact about you?

[4:42] Micayla Brewster: Okay. I love to pull this one out, because I actually, it gets even better if you're able to see the photo that I have of it, but Steve Jobs attended my birthday party in my childhood, and so I kind of knew this. Basically, his daughter was in my Girl Scout troop, and so she was invited to my birthday party, and so then he came and dropped her off, and picked her up, and whatever. I'm sure he wasn't there long. I have no idea the actual story, because I was eight or whatever, but there is a photo that I found of him in the background, like me, with the cake and stuff, and he's in a black turtleneck, and everything. It's just the most Steve Jobs. I'm from the Bay Area, and from Palo Alto, so that's my fun fact. And yeah, I can't imagine little Mikayla in front of the cake, and Steve Jobs in the back, just randomly posing, just being like, hi.

[5:42] Micayla Brewster: I know, it's comical. It's really funny. I'll send you the photo afterwards.

[5:50] Martín Acuña: I love that. I love that. So, let's get into the specifics of your work in social media, and marketing, and theatre, and Broadway. So, which was your aha moment in which you decided that this was the industry that you wanted to work on?

[6:05] Micayla Brewster: Yeah, I mean, so my story is a little different from most of my theatre colleagues who I've talked to, because, and I think this is telling, and probably a reason why I have stuck around, and why it's clear that everybody wants to work in this industry, but I have met so many people who it's been like, my dream is to work in theatre. My dream is to work on Broadway. I will not do anything. I will do whatever it means to do. You know, I'll sweep the floors. I will just let me be involved, and, you know, I think that is not something that happens a lot of the time, you know, and so it's very clear that that's a quality, you know, a very special community that's gathered, and so I come more from the marketing, social media space.

I have always loved entertainment and pop culture, although my friends will laugh at me, and there are plenty of gaps in pop culture notes that I've got, but I have always really enjoyed that side of things, and I guess being from California, Hollywood was always a little bit more on my mind, and so I kind of thought that film or television and marketing was going to be my intersection, and so through college, that was where I kind of was headed, and then it wasn't until I went on a trip to New York and saw a show, Something Rotten, and just, like, absolutely loved it, followed their social media. I thought it was so cute. I had also, like, my roommate at the time, we were, she was kind of bringing me into the musical theater world a bit more.

She introduced me to Hamilton. She introduced me to some of, like, my first shows that I, you know, was streaming the cast album over and over again, and we'd, like, sing it in our apartment in college and stuff, and so slowly, I became a fan of more, like, recent musical theater pieces, and so through that, when I had an opportunity in New York to do an internship but found out that was only part-time, I was, like, okay, I need to fill my time with something else, so what, you know, what could that be, and I got it in my mind, you know, maybe Broadway shows, maybe I could help there, and so I sent a Facebook message to Something Rotten explaining how I enjoyed their strategy, and I thought they were doing such a great job, and I loved their show, and if they needed any extra help, I was coming to the city this summer if they needed anything, and included my LinkedIn to prove I was a real person and sent it off, but then copied that same message, tweaked it for Hamilton because I was, you figure I'm a fan, obviously, of that, and it was, like, peak, like, Hamilton time in 2015, and so I, yeah, was just, like, assuming that the smaller show would maybe be the opportunity, but the next day, I had an answer from Hamilton in my inbox on Facebook saying that they were interested in setting up an interview, and so that kind of brought me into the world of theatre, and since then, it's just been, like, every person that I interact with being able to be a part of such a tight-knit and small community just makes it, I think, so much easier to, like, progress in your career because there are so many more chances to really just, like, step up and do it, and I love looking around and seeing a lot of the, like, leaders in the industry start to be, like, my friends and, like, you know, people our age, and so it's just, it feels like a place of, like, boundless opportunity in a lot of ways. There's a lot of change that needs to happen in order to make that true for everybody, but I have found it to be nothing but a supportive and amazing community to develop my career in, and so I'm...

[10:22] Micayla Brewster: I'm thrilled to be a part of it now. I love that. And I love that you brought up that it was thanks to your roommate because little did they know they were nurturing this huge fan of musical theater. I love that. Well, the best part is like then I got to thank her in like the best way possible because then I got to go. She came with me to Puerto Rico for Hamilton's opening night there. We let's see where we got to go to the L.A. opening and we like walked backstage with my boss at the time and we all of a sudden like Lynn passes to our left and I'm just like, Lindsay, breathe, breathe, breathe. It's OK. So it was it was nice to be able to over the years pay her back for just actually completely changing my life.

So I love that. I love that. I would have I would have totally freaked out like for everyone. When I met Micayla back in BroadwayCon 2022, I remember we were in the green room and all of a sudden this huge Broadway stars that I looked up to started entering the room and I was like, Micayla, Micayla, Micayla. You're like, it's OK. Get used to it. Let me introduce you to them. And I was like, OK, that was really fun. And yeah, it was a really good experience. And that's why I got to meet a lot of people I really look up to in this industry, in that green room. And we were like having lunch together with everyone. I was just like, OK, yeah, this may be my life from now on. OK, I'm good. But that's honestly what I love is the fact like and I don't know this to be the case because I didn't end up going down the path of, you know, kind of the L.A. Hollywoodish sort of thing.

But I don't think that I would have worked on a TV show and ran their social media for three years and felt fully a part of the team and known every single person, every single fact about every single actor, everything. Right. And dedicated my life to this. I bet if I were sitting in a green room with any any of the actors, I don't know if they would have. They might have. They might not have. But I just think that because Broadway is so community oriented, because everyone has to work so closely, it just creates this space where you will develop more of a relationship with cast members. That was one thing that I never really even thought about being being a part of my life is actually getting to know the people on the stage. And that has been a wonderful, wonderful part of all of it. I love that.

[13:11] Martín Acuña: So let's phrase it a little bit back on your journey, because you started with an internship at Marathon and then everything like blew up. So let's go a little bit back to that time. And what do you did with Marathon? So you ran a lot of campaigns for shows like Hamilton. You just mentioned you were in Puerto Rico and the L.A. opening night, but also Hadestown and Be More Chill and Freestyle Love Supreme. So how was that whole experience like?

[13:44] Micayla Brewster: Yeah, it was amazing. I absolutely love all every single moment that I got to spend at Marathon. You know, I got a chance to work on things way earlier in my career than I think I would have and on projects way bigger than I ever could have dreamed of and was completely trusted to do so. And it allowed me to gain a lot of confidence in myself and to also do it in an environment where the quality of the social content was most important. It wasn't necessarily about like what's the easiest way to get from point A to point B, although there were moments where like, all right, all right, let's take a step back. Like, do we need to do all of this? You know, sometimes it got we were a little extra.

But the reason why I value that is because when you enter an environment where it's like, how can we do the coolest thing? How can we make the biggest splash? How can we like, yeah, make the most noise? That is going to be an environment where again, all the creativity is going to be welcome and where we are going to bend over backwards to try to get a cool thing done. And so it allowed me to learn how to dream bigger and brainstorms and to think through larger pieces. So it's like, you know, if you're thinking through day to day social content, there's only a certain amount of thinking forward that you have to do. But when you're starting to talk through like content shoots, or month long campaigns, or big partnerships, or some of these like really big things that I got to work on towards the end of my time there, that's exercising a lot more pieces of your brain and a lot more things that now I have found myself, you know, as a freelancer, faced with, hey, we need this problem solved.

Can you do this? We want this to be achieved. Can you do this? And I now have an attitude of like, yes, I can, because there have been so many times when I had no idea how to do a thing, but I figured it out. And so, and each time you do that, then you just gain the muscles that, you know, the next time those bits are easier, and it allows you to then extend yourself even further in a different direction and grow there. And so, yeah, I absolutely loved every second there. And it's definitely formed, yeah, my social media strategy and who I am as a social media manager.

[16:18] Martín Acuña: It's incredible. And that shows like working closely to you, you really are a problem solver. And with everything that we've done together, it's always thinking about being better, going a little bit bigger, as you said, a little bit extra, but always like trying to bring the quality content to the people. And I absolutely love that. What would you say is the best way to create a compelling social media strategy in this industry?

[16:50] Micayla Brewster: Yeah. So I would say the number one thing and the most important thing for anybody is figuring out like your brand. And so that includes who are you and what is it that you say? What is it that you have to offer? But then also thinking through like, who is it that you're speaking to? And what is the relationship that you have? Like, what is it that you're offering to them or that they're offering to you? And like, kind of literally thinking through a brand as a person, like I will write a description, give them personality traits, and say things that they will say or won't say that they will do that they won't do, and flesh out this person because I find it much easier to navigate social media when you have this character in your head that is, you know, that account.

And so number one, it's most important to know who you are. And then the second part, this is where I think it's a lot of like planning and kind of like brainstorming, throwing out a lot of different ideas, and trying them all and understanding that some are going to fail. And that is okay, because that is information that you're gathering. And some are going to do great. And that is also great, because you are gathering information, and you get all the all the extra engagements. And so the more that you figure out the intersection between who you are, and the social platform, which I'd say that's actually first most important, because, you know, if you come up with the best idea, but it doesn't fit onto what people are doing on TikTok, or on Twitter, or on Instagram, then the that's not going to mesh.

So first be thinking through how people are already using the platform, and then be thinking through the intersection between your brand, and and your audience and how and which pieces of content they're responding best to. So between like, you know, what the algorithm, you know, and also, I've got lots of thoughts on the algorithm and chasing all of that. And you know, it's, it's too exhausting, just take a breath and and just make good content. But you know, you have to keep a little bit of that in mind. But really, the most important thing is finding the most authentic connection and the one that resonates the most with your audience. And then once you find that out, dissect some of the qualities and say, Okay, I know that my audience really likes to share, they have a lot of opinions, they want to talk.

So I'm going to give them ways to do that, because I know that that's what they like to do. Or it could be they just really love looking at pretty pictures. And so I'm going to, you know, maybe creating a lot of video content doesn't work for you know, that is possible, even though the algorithm blah, blah, blah. So I think it's important to be testing, trying everything and then constantly pivoting based off of how people respond.

[19:43] Martín Acuña: That is great advice for not only for me as a social media manager, but also for everyone out there. Because you don't need a brand, you don't need a big, huge project to implement this stuff that you just mentioned into whatever you're doing on social media, even your own personal profiles and accounts. So I love that. Thank you for that. How would you summarize this whole journey in the industry?

[20:10] Micayla Brewster: Oh, my goodness. Those three words. Oh, my goodness. End of sentence. End of podcast. No, truly. Like, I think maybe that because I think it feels like for me, I don't know how many acts are in my musical of my journey, you know. But there was a moment where I didn't know.

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[30:15] Martín Acuña: Thank you so much for coming over. I have loved every single second of this conversation. Thank you so much for being here for being a part of Backstage Talk. And you know how much I love you and I admire you. So thank you so much.

[30:30] Micayla Brewster: Oh, thank you so much. I've thrown a little Spanish tequila. I absolutely will not do this in a few years. Well, we'll circle back. But you I am I am your biggest fan and I am so honored that you asked me to be here. So thank you.

[30:44] Martín Acuña: Thanks, everyone for listening to this new episode of Backstage Talk. Remember to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Backstage Talk Podcast.