Spark & Fire: Fuel Your Creativity

We’re excited to launch WaitWhat's newest weekly series, Pioneers of AI — your guide to the latest technological frontier. Hosted by AI thought leader, scientist, and investor Rana el Kaliouby, tune in for insights from industry trailblazers, explore the ethical considerations of AI, and get ahead of what’s to come as the technology continues to develop. Head to the Pioneers of AI feed now to hear...

From the team behind Spark & Fire, we're happy to share the first episode of Offsite Adventures, our newest show uncovering the gems, magical moments, and unique learnings in iconic business travel destinations. Three minutes before midnight in Times Square, one of the most trafficked commercial centers in the world momentarily transforms into a vibrant digital art installation, providing a re...

There’s a commonly held belief that great creative work comes from pain. But comedian and writer Phoebe Robinson says that this is a myth. Instead, Phoebe believes great creative work comes from a place of joy. As Phoebe shares her personal story of writing her debut essay collection, You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain , she draws on the things that bring her the mos...

Creative conflict can destroy a work-in-progress — or it can push your work beyond good to great. What matters is how you respond. We’re going to hear from 5 creators in 5 very different fields who share actionable strategies (and great stories) about how to recognize, resolve, and harness conflict to create work that is visionary. Featuring “Frozen” songwriters Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert L...

To make something irresistible, get to the fun part — fast. That’s how Exploding Kittens became one of the world’s most popular games. When cartoonist Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal) and game developer Elan Lee (former Xbox) designed the card game Exploding Kittens, they took fun very seriously. This mindset unlocked their creativity in unexpected ways: They transformed a Kickstarter into a wildly suc...

Behind every masterpiece — comedic, artistic, or otherwise — is a deep well of trust. Case in point: the legendary sit-com, Arrested Development . As Comedian David Cross shares the story of bringing to life the brilliantly absurd character Tobias Fünke, you’ll hear how every moment of comedic gold on the show was made possible by trust — trusting his collaborators, trusting the writing, and trust...

This episode follows the composer Kris Bowers’ personal story about composing the score for the culture-shifting and emotionally devastating work When They See Us . This award-winning series follows the true story of five boys, wrongfully accused in 1989 of the brutal rape of a jogger in New York’s Central Park. The narrative spans a quarter-century, from the night of the incident to their eventua...

Failure is a normal part — even an essential part — of any creative journey. But that probably isn’t what you want to hear after experiencing failure yourself. It’s easy to just want to crawl into a hole for a while. Today on Spark & Fire, we’re going to crawl out of that hole long enough to hear from 5 iconic creatives who have learned how to overcome failure to create something truly great.&...

When the ABC show  Cristela  premiered in 2014, Cristela Alonzo made U.S. history, the first Latina to write, produce, and star in her own prime-time comedy. But this dream didn’t come easy: Cristela had to fight for her vision at every stage of the process. As she takes us on the journey to making the sitcom, you’ll hear how she found her first opportunities by simply doing what she lov...

In the 1990s, Aasif Mandvi was a struggling actor looking for roles that didn’t seem to exist. So he wrote Sakina’s Restaurant — a solo show about an Indian immigrant family who owns a restaurant in New York City. When Sakina’s Restaurant premiered off-Broadway in 1998, there was really nothing like it. In this episode, Aasif tells the story of writing and starring in this pioneering one-person pl...

Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte started the band Pomplamoose together in 2008. The band found success with their viral YouTube videos, which have hundreds of millions of views. And while we usually tell the story of a single work on this show, in this episode, Jack and Nataly share the story of the band itself. The story of Pomplamoose is one of constant iteration, which is a skill any creative can tak...

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a creativity master. Many of us know him as an actor and director, but Joseph also co-created the collaborative media platform HitRECord. Joseph shares the journey of developing HitRECord: how it evolved from a single page of HTML to a global community of creative collaborators. Joseph’s story reveals that you have to take responsibility for your own creativity. Don’t stand...

There’s an intimidating blank page. A blinking cursor staring you down. A looming deadline for a project you haven’t touched. Sometimes, starting something new is the hardest part of the creative process. In this episode, you’ll hear from 5 creative people in 5 different fields offering 5 different strategies for how to start something new. Featuring novelist Ann Patchett on “The Dutch House,” Pix...

Stephen Schwartz has a motto for songwriting: Tell the truth, and make it rhyme. In this episode, Stephen tells the story of composing the Broadway musical Wicked . Not only does Stephen reinvent a beloved classic for the stage, he also commits to drawing out the universal truths — like the experience of friendship, betrayal, and love — that connect us all. This allowed Wicked to resonate with aud...

Felix Barrett, MBE, is the artistic director of Punchdrunk, a British theater company that specializes in immersive storytelling. In this episode, Felix shares the story of Sleep No More , Punchdrunk’s most famous and longest-running show. Sleep No More is a reimagining of Shakespeare’s Macbeth through a film noir lens. As Felix experiments with the production, he doesn’t get lost in the grandeur...

When Pixar asked Domee Shi to create a feature film, she ran to her friend’s office and rolled on the floor with joy. It was a dream come true. But Domee had to learn how to own her unique creative voice with all eyes on her, which meant embracing her inner weirdo. As Domee shares the story of directing Turning Red , you'll hear how she commits to seeing her outlandish ideas through and surrounds...

Finding the right collaborator, and growing together, is a creative feat. While songwriting duo Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez were writing the iconic songs to "Frozen," they discovered the key ingredient to a successful and lasting collaboration: generosity. Kristen and Robert offer insight on how to be a generous collaborator — from not walking out the door when things get tough, to off...

Musician Kayhan Kalhor shares the story of composing and performing “Silent City,” his epic 25-minute piece for the kamancheh (Persian spiked fiddle) and ensemble. It’s a specific story about writing music to memorialize a devastating event, the massacre of innocents in Halabja, Iraq. But the takeaway is universal: When life feels too much to bear, create art that means something — for yourself an...

Deep in the pandemic, visual artist Mark Bradford began work on an epic series called “The Unicorn Tapestries.” It’s inspired by the iconic medieval work of the same name, but created with everyday materials that speak to Mark’s experience: comic book papers, caulk, and other materials from the hardware store, layered and glued and then scratched and etched away to create a tapestry like no other....

When Ann Patchett sat down to read through her first draft of The Dutch House , she realized she had made a terrible mistake. A wrong turn, on page 36, sent the entire rest of the novel careening down the wrong path. So what’d she do? Deleted it and started over. Sometimes, committing to doing your very best work means destroying it and going again. In her own words, novelist Ann Patchett shares t...

What do you do when you fear you’ve lost touch with your creative voice? You let yourself feel it, and then open yourself up to inspiration.  When comedian Patton Oswalt suddenly lost his wife, he also feared he would lose himself. As he processes his grief, Patton takes us on the journey of finding his voice again, through the making of two very different comedy specials: “Annihilation” and...

You hit a creative dead end. You’re lost in the forest of thought. Let’s face it: you’re stuck. But getting stuck is part of the creative journey.  We hear it in every story on this show. So today, we’ve chosen our 5 favorite strategies on how to regain your creative momentum, and get unstuck.  Featuring Jurassic Park book designer Chip Kidd, Apollo Theatre’s Executive Producer Kamilah F...

Capturing an honest moment is one of the riskiest ways to create. But the results are real, and they stand the test of time. As musician Ben Folds tells the story of creating his breakout album “Whatever and Ever Amen” with the Ben Folds Five, you’ll hear a very specific story about a rock band recording an album in a house, instead of a studio, with piano instead of guitar, with lyrics drawn from...

The Silk Road Project was an impossibly ambitious, creatively expansive idea to not only create a category of music that had never been heard before, but also create ensembles to perform it, and audiences who were hungry to hear it. How did Yo-Yo Ma build this vision? He knew from the beginning that it wasn’t about him. You'll hear in the episode from Yo-Yo himself and four key players in the ense...

When you fall in love with a project, stay with it – for as many years as necessary. Its time will come. When screenwriter Allan Scott acquired the film rights to the Walter Tevis novel “The Queen’s Gambit,” he couldn’t have imagined it would take almost 30 years to get that movie made. Allan, along with executive producer Bill Horberg, talk about their long road to turning the cult-favorite book...