Backstage: The Rebrand and a New Dinner Concept

Backstage: The Rebrand and a New Dinner Concept

From The First Play w/ Matt Stone by Matt Stone Enterprises

April 22, 2026 · 12 min

About this episode

Matt Stone discusses his rebranding efforts and a new interactive dinner concept in NYC.

Fifty degrees and chilly in NYC, and Matt went underdressed to last night’s fantastic networking event—froze afterward grabbing a slice with a friend, but good times. After sharing trivia about the first White House Easter egg roll (1878—still creepy with the bunny), Jacques Cousteau’s diving apparatus patent (1952), and the Blues Brothers’ first SNL appearance (1978), he dives into what’s shifting. The networking event was run by Lisa, truly one of the best facilitators he’s ever seen. She even did a meditation at the end, which reminded him of facilitating a global distributor meeting in Rome years ago for a Japanese cosmetics company—he felt self-conscious doing a meditation then, worried people would think he was woo-woo, but maybe they liked it. Here’s the shift: this show, which started as a daily journal while building The Bigger Stage, has a different function now—refined, elevated. He’s rebranding the Substack channel to “Backstage”—the backstage of The Bigger Stage. The show will be the Backstage podcast, where he can publish written material and really build it out. Coming week he’ll finish the rebrand, get artwork made (maybe AI first, then have someone make it well)…

People in this episode

Host: Matt Stone

Topics covered

  • rebranding
  • networking
  • dinner concept
  • meditation
  • interactive events

Keywords

  • rebrand
  • networking event
  • dinner concept
  • meditation
  • interactive

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The Bigger Stage, Substack

Places: NYC, Rome

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