Today we’d like to introduce you to Audrey Lecker.
Hi Audrey, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I’m a director, comedian, and the founder of TIGERTEAM, a creative studio focused on bringing musical comedy to life on stage and online.
My background is a mix of entertainment and marketing strategy. I’ve always been drawn to comedy, music, and video (I started my career coordinating music videos for Columbia Records in the early 2010s), but I also spent years after getting my MBA working in marketing and content strategy for the tech industry, where I saw firsthand how various audiences actually discover and engage with media online.
Early in my career I was annoyed to learn that the traditional Hollywood model was completely outdated. Studios and networks don’t care if the project is good or enjoyable, they’re focused solely on the bottom line. On what’s statistically the most “guaranteed” to sell.
I think that’s pretty dumb.
You can do both: sell something successfully AND make it good. In fact, that’s the whole fun of it! That’s the exact intersection where it becomes art, in my opinion: the relationship between creativity and engagement.
In the past, creative projects were completely dependent on convincing a bunch of executive types who have zero connection to the material or the audience (and, frankly, zero taste) that your project is a good investment. But that’s completely changed over the last decade or so.
Now, we can completely skip the gatekeepers and interact directly with our audience. YouTube, streaming, TikTok, all of it functions as a focus group for what’s actually going to resonate with people. I don’t need some guy with a 500k salary telling me what the kids these days like and what they might buy– I can see the data myself.
That’s why I started TIGERTEAM. We develop original musical comedy projects designed for the modern entertainment landscape. It’s storytelling that lives on stage and online, across all kinds of formats. Each project is its own entire world, and audiences are invited to not only watch, but participate.
Our first production is “My Forbidden Alpha Billionaire Accountant”, a musical exploring love, office mean girls, and coming into your inner wolf at the age of 30.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
One of the biggest challenges I faced early on in the development of TIGERTEAM was realizing I couldn’t do everything by myself. I tried! A lot of different things! But it’s tough to keep motivation going when it’s just you and the computer screen. Plus, it’s simply not as fun as it is with friends.
I knew I needed to collaborate with people, but it had been a long time (and a different city and state) since I had a creative network. Going to business school and working in tech meant that my community at the time was great if you wanted to move through the corporate world, but utterly useless if you’re trying to do comedy.
Luckily, I live in Austin. My next challenge wasn’t finding an improv class and community of funny creatives, but deciding where to start! My life, both socially and creatively, is so completely different today than it was just a couple years ago thanks to the improv classes I took and opportunities to perform on stage at theaters like Coldtowne and Fallout.
Finding collaborators is no longer an obstacle. Now, it’s trying to explain the vision of TIGERTEAM. People can easily grasp concepts like a single TikTok or web series, a YouTube channel, a sketch or variety show. But when I try to explain that a TIGERTEAM production is literally all of that, each project is like its own ecosystem, we’re telling the story across multiple mediums, folks get confused. Which, honestly? Fair. There’s work to be done on that elevator pitch.
At this point I’ve decided to simply tell people we’re producing a musical comedy show (“My Forbidden Alpha Billionaire Accountant”! Don’t forget it!) and everybody will just have to wait and see how it comes to life in order to “get” TIGERTEAM.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I make musical comedy that lives on stage and in online content. I perform on stage as my alter-ego “Auds MBA”, singing songs about manifesting my dreams of becoming a capitalist dictator or selections from my most recent musical, “NOROVIRUS: The Musical”. I’ve performed with various improv teams as well, but right now I’m focusing on my werewolf musical.
The worlds I build are born from my deep obsession with Star Trek, Sailor Moon, Mel Brooks, and romance novels.
I’m proud of the fact that I got out of my house and actually did the things I dreamed about. It completely changed my life.
But I’m extremely proud of the connections I’ve made with local creatives, the community we’ve built together. If you want art to live in the world, you have to let go of the “perfect” vision of it that lived only in your head. That process can sometimes be painful, but it’s a hell of a lot more fun and fulfilling with friends.
I have an interesting mix of experiences. In Austin it’s not hard to find a creative, a comedian, somebody who knows their way around a movie set, or even a marketer. With my background, I feel uniquely positioned to build IP that’s fun, resonates with audiences, and scales revenue.
I love the challenge of balancing the need to make awesome stuff with the need to make money from it. The business of producing comedy musicals is my art just as much as creating and performing them.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
There’s a certain combination of characteristics that have been and will continue to be critical to my success: vision, determination, and patience. You need to know where you’re going, keep heading towards it, and to freakin’ RELAX because you WILL get there. Eventually.
In 2020, I had a 5 year plan for how I expected TIGERTEAM to launch and grow. Now it’s 2026, and instead of being a worldwide internet sensation, we’re “just” working on our first major musical.
2026 Audrey knows something that 2020 Audrey doesn’t, though. It simply takes time. I thought I’d be able to shop a pitch deck around and that investors would be amazed by my charisma and my colorful blazer and I’d start producing multiple projects at once.
To be honest, that was probably the Pandemic Brain talking.
I needed the last 6 years to gain confidence in my own art, to grow in a community, and to redefine what success actually looked like. I don’t NEED to be a worldwide internet sensation (though that would certainly help selling tickets and merch and funding our next 5 musicals). What I NEED is to regulate my nervous system, to have health insurance, to go on vacation with my partner, and to enjoy the creative process rather than rushing through it.
I constantly have to remind myself that we’re heading in the right direction, that neither Rome nor My Forbidden Alpha Billionaire Accountant were built in a day.
But Rome WAS built eventually. Gradually, over time. And so will My Forbidden Alpha Billionaire Accountant (the musical).
Contact Info:
- Website: https://tigerteamstud.io/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/audsmba
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@audsmba
Image Credits
The 3 pics I just uploaded are owned by Lilliana Campos, who has given permission. The rest are owned by me.
