When curtain falls on theatrical productions, JC resident's ode app is there to mark, review them
And also connect over them
By Chilltown Blues
Milena Mass has seen all that goes into a theatrical production from start to finish — oftentimes with no ode, so to speak, to show for it when all is said and done, so the JC resident decided to make a platform for that herself.
“The Off-Off-Broadway scene is one I know and love,” Mass told Chilltown Blues. “I’m a founding member (now managing director) of Bluebird Theatre Company, a nonprofit established in 2019. I’ve spent years seeing how much work goes into small and independent productions, and then how quickly the record of that work can disappear once the run is over and the scramble begins all over again for every grant application, show pitch, and next production.
“Unless there was formal press coverage, there often isn’t much left that reflects how the work actually reached people,” Mass said. “And formal critics and reviewers naturally don’t have the bandwidth to get to every show they’re sent a comp ticket for in a small black box, without A-list actors or large institutional backing.”
All this, Mass pointed out, in the age of logging and stats.
“We have Goodreads, Letterboxd, rings and wearables to track every movement, and so many other tools that let us keep a record of anything we read, watch, do, and experience,” Mass said. “Combining those two points, creating ode became a way to give theatre audiences a place to keep their own record of what they’ve seen, while also giving theatre-makers a free resource to hold onto that response and use it for good.”
“If someone is putting up a show and there is basic public information available — title, dates, location, company/artist info where applicable — they’re encouraged to find a home on ode.” - Milena Mass, ode founder
On ode — available via iOS on the App Store directly or via https://joinode.art as of December — audiences can log the shows they’ve attended, rate them and write “odes,” make lists, and find new shows through searching and social activity.
When it comes to audience discovery, there’s also editorial picks and a media arm of ode.
Theatre venues, artists, companies and producers can create profiles, upload seasons, encourage audience response via a QR prompt/link, use odes as testimonials, and more — with no bar for an entity to utilize ode.
“ode is not meant to be only for the most resourced productions, or only for companies already inside established pipelines,” Mass said. “If someone is putting up a show and there is basic public information available — title, dates, location, company/artist info where applicable — they’re encouraged to find a home on ode. Anyone can submit a show listing … For artists and companies, the tools are free: they can claim or manage their presence, use their admin dashboard, invite audiences to log the show, and collect responses without a (financial) barrier to entry.
“That doesn’t solve the larger access issues around space, funding, rehearsal resources, or production costs, of course,” Mass said. “But I do think documentation and visibility are part of the ecosystem. If a small company can point to audience response, show history, testimonials, and a living record of their work, that can help them build credibility over time.”
In the accessibility vein, Mass hopes to be able to go beyond “the iPhone-sphere,” but “right now, given that it’s still pretty early and self-funded, launching on iOS was my first instinct. Hopefully, with the growth of iOS users, an Android expansion can be on the horizon, because accessibility really does have to include platform access too,” Mass said.
Locally, nationally and internationally, ode’s potential listings are broad. That begs the question of how its “Editor’s Picks” are implemented.
“For (those) on ode, curation can include a mix of larger productions, independent shows, local work, and community-driven recommendations, but the discover page is ever-evolving,” Mass said. “I’m currently interested in developing partner-curated lists and will be releasing that in the next update, where the visibility comes from folks embedded in their particular community saying, ‘Here are the shows we think people should know about,’ with the list itself linking back to their work, publication, or entity.”
In the past decade the number of newspapers and venues that provide reviews of various art-forms has continued to dwindle. Ideally, such outlets provide informed reviews or perspectives. As the definition of “informed” evolves, reviews from remaining venues are still part of the bedrock for awareness in the zeitgeist.
“In short,” Mass said, “my hope is that ode can help widen the record, not by replacing critics, journalists, or curators, but by making audience response easier to share, to then collect, preserve, and use, especially for the artists who don’t automatically get written into the formal record.”
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