In honor of May’s Mental Health Awareness month, Dear Evan Hansen, the Tony, Grammy, Olivier-Award winning Broadway musical, is partnering with Blueberry Entertainment, the industry’s leading digital fashion brand, to launch an innovative metaverse fundraising event. Beginning Friday, May 13, 2022, a digital version of the show’s iconic blue striped polo will be available for purchase on Roblox, with 100% of the proceeds to benefit the Child Mind Institute, the not-for-profit dedicated to transforming the lives of children struggling with mental health disorders and learning disorders.
In parallel, as part of a partnership with two members of the genre-defining Bored Ape Yacht Club community, two Bored Apes will be dressed in the same blue-striped polo (#5430 and #5838). This partnership will draw attention to Mental Health Awareness Month and also include a donation to the Child Mind Institute. This marks the first time ever that a Broadway show is releasing digital fashion items to multiple metaverse communities.
“Everyone at Dear Evan Hansen is very proud that Evan’s blue-striped polo has become a recognizable symbol of the search for connection,” says Dear Evan Hansen producer Stacey Mindich said. “For several years, we have sold a replica of the onstage polo, with a percentage of profits going to our mental health not-for-profit partners. Now, we are excited to offer this polo to multiple metaverse communities, as the first Broadway show to partner with a digital fashion company, bringing live theater to a whole new audience, while also continuing our focus on philanthropy and mental health wellness.”
The blue-striped polo worn by the protagonist in Dear Evan Hansen, now part of The Smithsonian’s permanent collection, has become a symbol of a global yearning for connection – more relevant than ever after two-plus years of a worldwide pandemic. Through this collaboration with Blueberry, audiences will be able to engage with the polo like never before.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club is a collection of 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs – unique digital collectibles living on the Ethereum blockchain – that showcases the power and potential of web3 technologies and digital communities. The two Bored Apes (#5430 and #5838), designed and dressed by Blueberry in the blue-striped polo, will draw ongoing awareness to the importance of mental health in digital communities and the web3 ecosystem.
This first-of-its-kind partnership showcases the rise in popularity of digital fashion, a driving force behind self-expression and digital identity across dozens of metaverse communities. Digital fashion is already an enormous business with billions of dollars in sales each year across some of the largest gaming and social platforms. For example, last year one in five of Roblox’s daily users updated their avatars on any given day. Compared to traditional fashion, digital fashion is more sustainable, scalable, and infinitely creative. It empowers designers to release products to market in days as opposed to months and transforms the traditional fashion model to one of ‘accessibility’ versus ‘exclusivity’.”
Dear Evan Hansen reopened its Broadway production on December 11, 2021, and currently has three productions running across the globe, with its Broadway, North American Tour, and West End companies once again playing in tandem.