Words by Jerry Smith

Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear refuse to wait for moments to happen. The duo (collectively known as Barlow & Bear) have been met with multiple closed doors and made the decision to seize opportunities that they wanted themselves. Following a series of posts on social media app, TikTok, Barlow came up with the idea of turning the worldwide phenomenon Bridgerton, into a musical, letting her followers in on the process of creating the imaginatively rich take on what made the series beloved to many. Asking friend and film composer Bear to join the project and bring it to life, the duo quickly went viral, bringing fans of the popular series into the creative process and becoming overnight sensations for it. 

From the genesis of The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical to eventually being featured on BBC Radio, The Today Show and most recently, becoming the youngest composers to ever be nominated (and win) a Grammy in their category, the duo hasn’t stopped for a single second, becoming one of the most promising collaborative teams around. We spoke with Barlow & Bear about the journey from TikTok and beyond, which made for a great conversation about making things happen instead of waiting for them to transpire. 

Jumping right in, congrats! Following the journey of this record and project has been wild, it’s taken off in such astronomical ways. From its genesis on TikTok to winning a Grammy, it must feel spectacular for you both. 

Abigail Barlow: Yeah, it’s been crazy!

Emily Bear: We truly had zero expectations going into this. It was right in the middle of the pandemic when this whole thing started and it really was such a dark time for every musician in our industry. We were just looking for SOMETHING to do and we just happened to be inspired by this thing, which steamrolled into something we really fell in love with and wanted to wake up and do every single day. And here we are!

There’s a moment during your Today Show profile, in which you both are walking in New York’s Time Square and you see a massive advertisement for the record and even as a viewer, you can tell that was such a transformative and important moment. 

Barlow: When we came out for it, our agent and reps and the Today Show kind of secretly conspired to surprise us with that, the billboard in Times Square. Emily saw it before I did and I didn’t even believe her! (Laughs). It kind of just flashed on the screen for a second. The fact that they did that and a huge bucket list moment was checked off with this project, it was wild, pure madness. 

The record has really inspired many young creative types to tackle their own dreams, I can only imagine the warmth you must feel about that.

Bear: The amount of messages I’ve received from young kids who want to do this and didn’t know this was even in the realm of possibility has been great. Or kids in school who have messaged me, saying “I’ve always had dreams of being a composer but never knew people my age could possibly do it or people who look like me could do it,” it’s been so nice. That’s very inspiring to ME. 

The project and record have opened many doors, not only for yourselves but for young composers as well, showing that it can be done. You both are now the youngest Grammy winners in that respective category. While the record takes place in the world of Bridgerton, it also speaks on many topics that are relevant today, especially the fight for female equality.

Barlow: Absolutely, especially creatives. Emily posted something on Instagram about how only 2% of producers are women. They simply do not get the shine or the work that their peers do and that’s really sad. They don’t get the due they’re deserving of. It’s important to us both to even speak on that within the creative work we do. 

Bear: Obviously, visibility for female creatives, especially in the composer/producer field, has gotten better in the past few years, and there have been some amazing firsts, but the thing that annoys me the most now, is acting like we don’t exist. That just isn’t true. I could list off a hundred brilliant composers and orchestrators who are all trying to be seen and heard. They’re here, but just aren’t getting the work they deserve to get. It’s still very much a boys’ club. We started writing musical theater together three years ago, but we were 18 and 22 and nobody would give us the time of day. It was very much, “Well, have fun, sweetie, with your musical idea. Come talk to us in ten years.” That very same music, we recently pitched to a wonderful production company who does that stuff and we are now developing it as a feature. It wasn’t the music, it was the looking down at young creatives that kept the doors shut those years ago. 

Barlow: (Laughs) It’s a funny business.

The story of the project is such an inspiring one and speaks on not only the underdog but not waiting for those doors to be opened, opting instead to kick the doors open yourselves. It also speaks on the relevance of social media apps such as TikTok, when it comes to getting your art to your audience. 

Barlow: I had been posting original pop songs on there since I was 16 and still living in Alabama. It became my niche, to do livestreams where I’d sing for people, or write songs in real-time, with an audience. Because of that, I knew the power of an audience’s perspective. That audience was informed by choices and really made my songs better.

When I asked Emily to help me realize the project to its maximum potential, we really wanted to put it all on there, the entire process of putting it together. I saw how powerful it was in building an audience. I posted a couple of TikTok’s of a couple of songs and then Emily and I got in the same room and we wrote the rest of it in six weeks. We did it all online, in real-time for people, it was crazy. We really found this glorious corner of the internet where everybody wanted to be involved and lend their creativity to our own creativity. It was very magical, this wonderful thing that happened to both of us. 

Bear: It’s really easy to let something become just a trend and fade away. That could have very easily happened with this, but I think for some reason, the stars aligned. We do this every day, write music. I do it, Abigail does it and you do it too. So we all know what goes into it, what the process looks like, so I think because people like us do it every day, we lose sight somewhat of the fact that not everybody knows what it’s like to sit down and write a song. They don’t know what it’s like to build a project from the ground up. Any fan of an artist like Taylor Swift would kill to see what it’s like to see her write a song, how cool would it be to see how your favorite artist creates their art and the evolution of that. I feel like what we did, the pulling back of the curtain, allowed the audience to feel invested in what we were doing. It made them feel like they played a part in it and they did, we were instantly workshopping the songs in front of them.

When we decided that we were going to put it out, just for fun, with no money whatsoever, we were expecting the people who watched the progress to listen to it, but in no way did we expect the response we got. It started very small on Tin Tok, but it took off far beyond that. 

Barlow: The content definitely had legs. 

Was there a specific moment in which you two looked at each other and said, “This is a thing, this is going to be much bigger than we expected?”

Barlow: When it blew up and went viral and we saw people begin to sing these songs themselves, it began to feel like it was no longer just our little secret, that it had a life of its own. There was a specific moment when we were writing it in Chicago, that we began to get calls from BBC Radio. They asked, “Can you do a radio interview at 3 am your time,” and we immediately yelled, “YES!” They called us back a few days later and told us they wanted to do an actual segment on us, so we went around Chicago and took pictures and it started to feel like what we were doing was bigger than expected. Our partnership felt special and it’s lifelong. 

Bear: When we performed it for the first time, it was yet another pinch-me moment, because we had experienced everything via a phone and that was the first time we got to see people enjoy it in the flesh. So there have been many of those moments actually, from performing it for the first time, to having it be received well by our peers or even children who didn’t even know musical theater was a thing. I’ve received messages from young kids who went and got a piano because of it and that’s such a great thing to feel, to read about those experiences. 

Barlow: They say it only takes one person to believe in you and we had each other. We kind of took each other’s hand and said, “Let’s take this rollercoaster together.” 

Speaking on Bridgerton itself, it’s most definitely a phenomenon. As the internet has proven time and time again, fanbases can be quite brutal. What has the reception been from the hardcore fans of the show? Were they able to say, “these are the characters we love and the stories we love, let’s go on on this journey?”

Bear: Abigail has been on the internet since the dark ages (Laughs), and as we all have found, the internet has the really dark corners of it, but as she said earlier, we seemed to have found this wonderful little corner, where people were excited and positive. We were expecting hate, especially when it went viral, but somehow, everyone was so supportive of what we were trying to do. It was lovely and truly felt like a community. Of course, they had opinions, there were times during the livestream, where they’d go, “Ew, gross, not THAT,”  and we would either take that advice or not. It’s really allowed us to connect with so many wonderful humans, from fans to Broadway stars we grew up loving, it’s been so great. 

Barlow: We knew people would have opinions, especially since we were taking one entire season, with fourteen characters and adapting it for the stage. We, unfortunately, had to disappoint some fans by not serving some characters as much as they had wanted, but the majority of fans really got on board right away. 

Part of being a composer is stepping into the project’s shoes, whether it be the characters and what they’re feeling or the overall heart of the project itself. As fans of the series yourselves, how was it stepping into that world and characters and bringing them to life for the stage?

Barlow: It was wonderful. It was very much an exercise in fun for me. The pandemic made so many of us unhappy and I know many people I knew were ready to give up on the dream, so to be able to put myself into the shoes of someone else and live within a fairytale for a time was very much a blessing to me. The six weeks of intense writing we did for it was a great escape from reality. 

Bear: The most difficult part for me, was deciding what we wanted to focus on the most, and which storyline and characters we wanted to focus on. It was basically nine hours of content that we had to cut down to two hours of a stage show because it’s a concept album. We decided to really focus on the Daphne/Simon storyline, their love story and the chaos that surrounded them. Some fans really wanted some of their favorite characters to be fleshed out more, but we had to tell them that if it ever actually became a stage show, we would probably have to write another 25 songs, so we’d be able to focus on those subplots more, but for this project, it was based on their beautiful story that captivated everyone. 

You mentioned earlier how some of your Broadway heroes responded to the project. I’m sure that was a great feeling, but I also imagine the moment you found out you were nominated for a Grammy must have been spectacular for you both.

Barlow: We were in London, having high tea after meeting Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, making some TikTok’s (Laughs). We were there, in this magical Bridgerton ballroom, annoying everyone around us with our phones propped up. Emily couldn’t eat and I was stress eating, showing how yin and yang we really are. We were the last names called. They announced Stephen Schwartz’s Snapshots, so we immediately thought, “We’re not going to get it,” right before they announced us and we freaked out. We went into the bathroom and asked each other, “Did that really just happen?”

Bear: I feel like that day will go down as one of the most ridiculously perfect days ever. We were in London, where the show takes place. We had meetings in the morning and got to hang out with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, which is obviously INSANE. We spent the entire afternoon with him, which was so lovely. We were going to see Eddie Redmayne in Cabaret that night, and instead of going back to our Airbnb, we decided to have high tea there in the ballroom and watch the nominations.

When we were nominated, we were then skipping around London, on our way to Cabaret and yelling, “Musical theater, we love it!” Intermission came and we went to grab a drink and saw Jonathan Bailey (Bridgerton). I told Abigail, “That’s Jonathan Bailey!,” and she didn’t believe me. 

Barlow: I said that we should wait for him to come out of the bathroom and then we could bother him (Laughs). 

Bear: He came out and came over to us first. He said, “Abigail? Emily?” And we just said, “Jonathan??” We told him we were just nominated for a Grammy and he said, “Oh my god, we listen to your music in the trailers!” Like the entire project and everything that came with it: it was simply a perfect little storm. With all of the work, we had put into it…

Barlow: That was the cake. It really was.