It’s raining creative men! Our inbox has been awash with them lately. Whether making films, producing mega entertainment for kids, conceptualizing Brooklyn FC merch or designing a brand that demands we “play attention,” these Westport dudes (and dads) have got it going on.
Round Room Live
Stephen Shaw and Jonathan Linden
Westport dads Stephen Shaw and Jonathan Linden must be real-live superheroes in the eyes of their kids. The duo, co-presidents of Round Room Live, have transformed the family-friendly touring industry, producing live shows and exhibitions that wow attendees and win awards. With the success of tours like Baby Shark Live!, Blippi and Peppa Pig, Round Room Live has “mastered the model” of family entertainment, according to Forbes.
Drawing on his background working on tours involving major brands (The Rolling Stones, Oprah Winfrey, Marvel, to name a few) and his recent immersive experience as a dad of four, Shaw launched Round Room in 2016.
“Working with The Rolling Stones and other major touring acts was thrilling—those were formative years where I learned what world-class production really looks like,” says Shaw. “But as I got older and became a dad, my perspective naturally shifted. I started thinking more about experiences that could connect across generations—something I’d want to share with my own kids.”
He and Linden had worked together at several companies since 2007. “The opportunity to join Stephen on the Round Room journey and create something of our own was not only exciting, but also a quick decision,” says Linden, who has impressive productions credits, including the Barbra Streisand and Oprah Winfrey tours as well as Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark and Rock of Ages (lead producer) on Broadway. Shaw comments, “The work we do now still has scale and ambition, but it also has heart—and that mirrors where I was in my life when I started the company.”
Shaw’s kids, age 3 to 11, are vital guinea pigs for Round Room Live. “They’re brutally honest,” says Shaw, “which is exactly what you want when testing an idea. If something doesn’t grab their attention in the first 30 seconds, I know we’ve got work to do. One of my favorite moments was during Baby Shark Live! rehearsals. I brought them in to watch and as soon as the music started, they were dancing in the aisle—not because I asked them to but because they were completely in the moment. That’s when I knew we had something.” Linden also turns to his kids (13 and 14) for insight. “They’re growing up in a world with so many more choices than we had just a few years ago,” he says, “so it’s incredibly valuable to understand from their perspective which brands are gaining traction and why.”
Both dads moved with their families from the city in 2020 (Shaw in March, coincidentally at the start of the pandemic, and Linden in July—a contemplated moved, spurred on by it). “Like many, I was craving space, clarity and a deeper connection to home and family,” says Shaw. “After years of nonstop travel and living in fast-paced environments, Westport offered something grounding. It’s a town that values creativity, community and a strong sense of balance—qualities that mirror a lot of what I was looking to build not just in my personal life, but in the next phase of Round Room.”
That phase has included branching out into sports. “The Formula 1 Exhibition stands as one of the most exciting and ambitious projects Round Room has undertaken,” comments Linden. There are now multiple shows touring globally and the London exhibition won “Best Visitor Experience” at the prestigious Access All Areas Awards.
Learn more: roundroomlive.com
Nowrider
Justin Bolognino
And the winner of Most Unique Origin Story goes to… the brand Nowrider. Founder Justin Bolognino recounts how it all started: “My dear friend Viva Max retooled an ’86 red Chevy Suburban to run on vegetable oil, and in 2002 we painted the Nowrider logo on the hood of this giant gas guzzler, then drove it all the way across the U.S. and back. We stopped at Chinese food restaurants along the way to gas up. So the journey started there, but then I sat on the idea for over twenty years. We’ve now designed Nowrider into a brand focused on ‘apparel for being in the moment’ or simply ‘flow state apparel.’”
“We are at the center of the Venn diagram of the formality of golf, the relaxed nature of surfing and the day-to-day joy of being alive on Spaceship Earth,” says Bolognino. The brand’s tagline is “Play Attention” and a “Minister of Adventure” will narrate the Nowrider journey. The company has begun with a slow roll-out of an OG Collection of four hoodies to friends, family and influencers, with an official launch planned for later this year. Bolognino raves, “The Fluff Hood is the best hoodie I’ve ever owned.” He predicts tee shirts and golf apparel will be next.
The chill approach to hitting the market is right on-brand. “Nowrider is first and foremost a concept, a mode of being or a way of life,” says Bolognino. “The only reality is the ever-present now. Learning to ride the waves of the moment is the inspiration for Nowrider.” He adds, “We think phones and social media have been majorly harmful to our kids (and adults, and…seniors!) and will be using the brand to encourage more outdoor, real-world, in-nature play.”
Nowrider is just one of a few ventures that keep the founder’s in-the-minute life packed, and it’s refreshingly tangible. “I’ve always wanted to own and launch a proper, in-the-world physical product, and Nowrider is my first attempt at doing so,” says Bolognino, who founded META, an immersive experience company, in 2010 (before Zuckerberg launched his Meta). Before that, Bolognino launched brands like Brooklyn Bowl and Capital Theater through his company Learned Evolution. While putting apparel out into the world, he also has a plan to launch a digital social network aptly named Unreality, under the META umbrella.
Anyone who needs rehab from social media unreality or fast-lane reality can experience Bolognino’s solution for recharging. “We own a retreat compound and music studio in the Western Catskills, called Silent G Farms, where we go to get creative or enjoy our twenty acres of nature,” he explains. “We rent the farm to retreats, families and companies. The feel of being at Silent G certainly inspires the Nowrider brand feel and mission.”
Bolognino and his wife, interior designer Elizabeth Bolognino, decamped from Brooklyn to the Catskills in 2021, with their three kids and puppy Billy Holiday.
“Once we got a taste of space and nature, there was no going back to NYC,” he says. “We immediately fell in love with Westport due to the unique way the houses are integrated into nature, the proximity to the beach, the incredible schools and the public arts and activities.”
Bolognino calls Nowrider a “definitively and proudly Westport-based brand” and plans to have a board of advisors made up entirely of Westport residents.
Shop: nowrider.com
White With Fear
Andrew Goldberg
Emmy-Award-winning documentarian Andrew Goldberg is known for tackling important topics with a fearless passion, and his latest project might be a nail-biter for a less gutsy filmmaker. White With Fear “takes a sledgehammer to the Trump administration,” says Goldberg, but he’s not concerned about the flying debris because he wasn’t wielding the hammer, just the camera.
Goldberg interviewed controversial figures like Hillary Clinton, Steve Bannon, Rep. Jamie Raskin, former Fox News reporter Carl Cameron and The Lincoln Project co-founder Stuart Stevens, on the charged topic of how racial bigotry is weaponized to undermine democracy. “The film does not have a narrator,” says Goldberg. “It’s mostly Republicans talking about their experience.” He says people watch the trailer and assume it must be “anti-white. But it doesn’t assert an opinion that is pro- or anti-white; it’s just what a group of politicians have done,” he explains.
What they have done is outrageous enough that one site (Movie Jawn) offered this review: “White With Fear is like watching an avalanche form in slow motion, feeling helpless while it gathers enough rage to bury us all.” Other critics described it as “masterful” and “absolutely required viewing,” but most film festivals didn’t want to touch it. Likewise, the major outlets responded: “We’re in the entertainment business, not the political business.”
Goldberg has produced 14 prime-time documentary specials for PBS in his career, including the Emmy-winning A Yiddish World Remembered. “After the George Floyd murder, there was a lot of conversation about white identity. I spoke to PBS about doing something about what it means to be white in America,” explains Goldberg. PBS didn’t bite. “That morphed and evolved into the film we have today. Defining whiteness is vague and rife with political opinion. I decided to talk about how it affects politics,” he says.
Convincing public figures to be interviewed involved some negotiating. “The most interesting story was Steve Bannon,” recalls Goldberg. “He was going back and forth with me. He said, ‘I’ll do the interview if you get Hillary.’” Goldberg texted Bannon a selfie with Hillary after her interview. It was a surreal moment for him, in the hotel restaurant, watching her eating lunch a few tables away, secret service in tow, and texting Bannon. “He agreed,” says Goldberg. “I showed up at his house in D.C., where each house in the row had a row of flowers in front.” He and his camera person couldn’t help but notice: “The ones in front of Bannon’s were dead.”
White With Fear has had a theatrical run across the country, and it recently screened to a packed house at Westport Library, as part of the always-stellar Andrew Wilk Presents series.
Goldberg has known the fellow producer since long before Covid chased Goldberg and his family out of New York and into the fresh air of Westport. The town was familiar to them from stopoffs at the Wilks on trips up to visit relatives of Goldberg’s wife in Rhode Island. Goldberg also coincidentally has several other friends here, whom he met his very first week at an advertising firm in New York at 22, straight out of Rutgers. The Chicago native got an MBA at the University of Chicago and ventured into filmmaking in 1999.
Anyone who has yet to catch White With Fear and its can’t-look-away—or shouldn’t-look-away—avalanche can stream it now on Amazon and Apple.
Learn more: whitewithfear.com
Brooklyn FC Merch
Tom Lyons and his team of Westport experts
When Tom Lyons, CMO of Brooklyn Football Club (Brooklyn FC), had five weeks to give Brooklyn FC a merch and e-commerce makeover ahead of their inaugural season, he turned to his Westport neighbors. It’s like a normal town’s version of going next door for a cup of sugar. Lyons just needed a new full-stack Shopify site and merchandise program—nothing that some dads at Coleytown Elementary and Temple Israel couldn’t pull together with talent, ingenuity and some Sherwood Diner breakfast meetings.
“It was important to me to work with people I know and trust, and Westport really is a hive of connections across every industry,” says Lyons. He worked with Ian Edery, founder of ECOY (an e-commerce agency) and fellow Coleytown dad, and Omri Bojko, co-founder of TVP (a merchandising wholesaler and distributor), whose family attends Temple Israel with the Ederys. “Ian is right out of Malcolm Gladwell; he is the quintessential ‘connector,’” says Lyons. “So I spoke to Ian, walking back from walking our kids to school, and by that afternoon I was talking to Omri.” The trio, all of whom migrated here from Brooklyn, soon were meeting at the Westport Library to review samples and site flows.
“Ian and I would talk about the digital experience almost daily. Ian and his shop have done a ton more than build out the website; they have essentially built out the entire eCRM experience,” notes Lyons. Ian describes Ecoy as “a special-ops team for online retail.”
Of TVP, Omri says, “We work with a range of clients, from nonprofits and media brands to sports teams and celebrities. Our goal is to help bring our clients’ brands to life, creating a tangible connection with their fans and supporters.”
Lyons also sought advice from Westport-based sports management leaders Mike Forde and Jim Rossman, of Sportology. “Jim Rossman and I have been friends and colleagues for years, since our agency days,” says Lyons, who, as a lifelong sports fan, was lured to Brooklyn FC last year. “Jim is, without question, one of the smartest people I know and has been a mentor of sorts to me. When my family and I moved here from the city, he and I began to grab the occasional lunch at Nomad, Sherwood. Mike is also a longtime Westport resident and has a ridiculously impressive sports and FC resume. Jim introduced us, and Mike has been very generous with his time for both me and the club—all for free. Jim was incredibly helpful in mapping out what types of brands I might look at as sponsors—all for a chicken sandwich.” See, it’s just like that cup of sugar.
When Lyons moved to Westport in 2020, his college friend here told him: “Welcome to the best decision of your life.” That sentiment becomes more spot-on by the day. “I was afraid that Westport would be a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses kind of place,” says Lyons. “That would be okay, as my family is fine losing that kind of battle, but it would make socializing kind of a drag. But what I found, and what I think is evidenced in the example of Ian, Omri, Jim and Mike, is that the people here are very interested in cooperating and collaborating over competing.”
Ian Edery comments, “Being able to contribute to shaping the future of a professional soccer team, especially as a native New Yorker and former Brooklyn resident, has made this project one of my favorites. Collaborating with great people and friends has made this feel more like a passion project than work. Tom and his family are our next-door neighbors and were among the first to warmly welcome us to Westport.”
The next generation is gearing up to make its mark, too. Ian’s kids (ages 7 and 3) “have been integral to the project, mainly by telling me what kind of merchandise they would like to see us create (toys!),” says Edery. Bojko’s kids (6 and 2) and Lyons three girls (6-year-old twins and a 3-year-old) also chime in on what they like and model their Brooklyn FC gear at school regularly
Get your merch: brooklynfc.shop