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Joey Contreras on the rise of IN PIECES | writer / composer talks the new musical's London run | INTERVIEW
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Interviewer
When a concert production of the new musical In Pieces was announced for the other Palace Theatre in London, it sold out almost immediately, prompting the producers to add multiple additional performances. The show, which began its life as an album of standalone contemporary musical theatre songs by Joey Contreras, has been gaining pace and popularity for years now on social media and is currently in development to transition from a song cycle as it has previously been produced to a full booking, inclusive narrative musical. Given the evident overwhelming interest in the show and my own enthusiasm after seeing
- [02:37]
Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
a recorded version of it a few
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Interviewer
years ago, I was so excited to sit down with the show's writer and composer, Joey Contreras, minutes before I enjoyed the final performance in London, I was eager to ask him about the show's genesis, its ongoing development, and whether he thought there were lessons to be learned from the success of In Pieces in terms of gaining and building an audience during a new musical's development here is what he said.
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Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
Oh, my God. Hey, Joey Contreras, we're here at the other Palace Theatre in London where you've had three out of four performances of In Pieces. This wildly well sold run. You've had to add extra crazy Monday and Tuesday morning afternoon matinees. The final performance is in about 30 minutes time. How are you feeling right now?
- [03:19]
Joey Contreras
I'm feeling exhausted, but also really grateful for the response of this run. You know, we did squeeze in like a lot, lot of shows and as much as we could because right now we're sharing the space with unfortunate and they got a load back in and so we really wanted to be able to bring as many people this show and it's been exciting and I've met so many people from all over. Like literally people from like Italy and Portugal and all over London and even people flew in from the States. So it's been really beautiful.
- [03:52]
Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
Yeah, that's crazy because something, you know, you have online popularity but not until you do and in person kind of a moment do you find out people are going to fly in, it's going to sell out as fast as it does and there's so much enthusiasm.
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Interviewer
Were you anticipating that had you become
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Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
aware of the following around In Pieces?
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Joey Contreras
Yeah, I mean, you definitely hope that the excitement that you see online will translate into an in person situation. And honestly, over the last, like year, we've really seen that grow and that's been thrilling and exciting and so much fun. And again, it's like I have so much gratitude for the people that are showing up because I know that people are like making trips and spending a lot of money to come and be a part of these live events. And so a lot of this two things that are kind of operating right now is like there's the development of the show, which is obviously key. And then I can't help but think about the fan base that are there with us every step of the way and wanting to deliver something really exciting for them live as well. So it's a little bit of a balancing act, obviously, but yeah, it sounds cheesy, but I am doing a lot of it. On one hand developing and on the other hand, like wanting to, you know, give them something really exciting to come and attend.
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Kelly
Yeah, yeah.
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Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
I'm very curious. Obviously you're working with Andrew Pitino and regular people and this staging has been directed by my friend Martha Gillan. Fantastic team. I'm curious about the thought process behind coming to London specifically.
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Joey Contreras
I mean, London, I love London and I've done some concerts here and actually a lot of my streaming numbers are big in London. So the demographics, the audience is there. And in our comments, there's always people that are like, come to the uk, come to London, we want to see you in London. And so that was definitely a component in bringing the show here. Obviously London is a theater hub, so that, that made sense there. But then another thing that I think more and more people are starting to talk about is that developing theater in New York and in the States is not writer friendly and it's really expensive, it's really difficult. And so here in London it allows for more development room. And so I find London to be a much more theater making friendly place.
- [06:24]
Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
It's occurring to me right now in this moment. The first time I ever heard one of your songs performed live was downstairs Natalie Weiss gig she did here more than 10 years ago. And then I heard it again when there was a version of In Pieces filmed during the shutdown at Kidzania, which is this. I don't even know if it still exists, but it was this indoor like adult sized kid playground doing all of the numbers from In Pieces. But the show has sort of developed even further from then and correct me if I'm wrong, was it always inherently going to be narrative or did it start as more of like musical theater contemporary concept album that kind of took more of a narrative shape?
- [07:12]
Joey Contreras
Yeah, well, originally I kind of built my career off of making standalone theater albums. And so I had a bunch of songs that people, fans were wanting to see kind of strung together as sort of a songs for a New World song cycle type of project. And so the show did originate kind of jukebox musicalizing my catalog into this theatrical piece. And that's what we released originally in 2020, 2021. We, you know, packaged it up as like a licensable project and it became super popular out of kind of suddenly, I think also because, you know, a bunch of my songs that were in that show were available on previous records, but there were like a handful of songs that hadn't been released. So I decided to record them and package them up as this highlights album that kind of was the beginning piece for In Pieces and, and then that Kidzania production that you mentioned, you know, I wasn't a part of that, but that was a licensed project that was really splashy and exciting and star studded, you know, really awesome talent. And, and so I think the, the combination of us releasing that American Highlights album and that London licensed production and then Pretty soon there were, like, literally 20 licensed the first year, and I hadn't even done my own production of it yet. You know, we were still in a very, like, hybrid world. And so then once that kind of started taking off, I was able to see it in the hands of a lot of different creative teams. I would go to other productions as things started to open up, and I was seeing what was working, what wasn't working for me, and. And that's when Andrew Patino came on board as a commercial producer, and he was like, well, what do you. He's like, what do you want to do with the piece? What do you see? And I said what I said, and I was like, I want to deepen the characters. I want to write new songs for it. I want to really flesh out this story. I want to write a book for it. And he was like, great, because those are all the things that I think it needs. And so that kind of became this whole in pieces 2.0 process. And one of the things that I felt like we really wanted to do culturally was to really bring people into the process. And so it really has been evolving in front of everybody, obviously, still, like I said, protecting the development process. Process when we need to. But that means, like, the kind of interesting and sort of, you know, I would, you know, admit, kind of clunky way of having, like, a Highlights record that originally was sort of created to be like a. Like a mixtape vibe. And then all of a sudden, we had a deluxe edition that had other actors that were singing the character. So I understand the questions of, like, what's the story? Because all of that. But this, I think, is really this thing that we're doing at the Other palace is really answering the questions of that.
- [10:03]
Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
Yeah, I'm excited to see it. I feel, was sort of validated because I wrote a little something about the Kidzania version. This was years ago. And I remember it was Ross Harmon, I think, lovely Ross Harmon SANG Me and Mr. Popularity, which I love that song. And I wrote about it feeling like a very familiar, like, teenage queer, unrequited romantic thing. And then I went back to the lyrics. I was like, oh, it never actually says that. Like, he just wants, like, to be friends with this popular guy. And then I gather, like, maybe the way that it takes shape and the way that that narrative carries on, maybe it is actually going in that direction. And it was kind of something there in the material as well. I'm wondering, sort of beyond that particular song, whether there's anything. Because the whole piece is about sort of these connections and these relationships. If there's anything within it that feels the most personal to you, I mean,
- [10:58]
Joey Contreras
the show is extremely personal to me because what's interesting is that it originally started from a lot of songs that I wrote about my life. And then since then, I mean, what we originally had as in Pieces 1.0, I've rewritten about 70% of those songs and have added like brand new material. So there's a lot of songs that are on that initial Highlights album that are no longer a part of the show. And there's like a whole bunch of new songs that were written for the characters of the story and everything. But all of them, I've been saying, are like, you know, pieces of my personality and of my habits and my journeys through love over the course of my life. And that's really what the show is examining is how your. How your relationships evolve over the years and how the memory of these relationships evolve over the years. Because I think that how you look at something when you're 17 is very different when you look at it with a 30 year old lens. And I find that really moving.
- [11:55]
Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
You spoke about Songs for a New World, which I think sort of was the first chapter of where contemporary musical theater kind of began and sort of a phase that maybe we're still in. I'm wondering what you think about the current contemporary musical theater sound, whether you think it is shifting, whether you think it already has, and where your voice sits in that.
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Joey Contreras
I mean, I definitely have a lot of thoughts on contemporary musical theater and the sound and how it gets depicted as well. I think that as someone who has been writing in the contemporary musical theater scene for a very long time, I think some people would say that I kind of represent like, you know, the early 2000, 2009, 2010s musical theater sound. And then. And then I think contemporary musical theater, at the end of the day, what I find most important is strong melodies and strong storytelling and being heart forward and being.
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- [13:25]
Joey Contreras
Oh, no.
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- [14:17]
Joey Contreras
and there's so many things, there's so many things that we could dive into. So yeah, I think it's, I really, it always comes back down to the story at the end of the day. Like, what is the story and what kind of music wants to tell this story? I think this show is the most me show that I have. I think of myself as a contemporary musical theater writer, but my other shows have a very different sound and it still kind of fits inside that box. I don't know if that answers your question fully, but.
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Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
No, it's a very good diplomatic answer. Yeah.
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Joey Contreras
Yeah. I'll tell you who I like, who I don't like.
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Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
No, well, no, but I'm intrigued who you are inspired by, whether that's other composers, whether it's performers who have sung your work over the years, whether it's individuals in this particular project.
- [15:01]
Joey Contreras
Yeah, well, I mean, what's cool is that when I first started my first album that came out, you know, has Jeremy Jordan on it, for example, and Jeremy Jordan, I had heard Jeremy sing on a YouTube video and was like a Wednesday matinee Tony in West side Story at that time. And Jeremy Jordan has gone on to really embody one of the main sounds of contemporary musical theater. And so I think that I was inspired early on by the people that I was excited hearing at concerts in the New York underground kind of concert scene. And obviously that like influenced the range, the vocal range of the songs that I wrote and everything. But in addition to that, like, I, I was always really a pop boy growing up. So I was inspired by Max Martin, but then also Jonathan Larson and then even Jason Robert Brown. You know, I was a musical theater kid, I'm a bfa, like all of that. But I was always a songwriter first before I even did any of the acting side of things.
- [16:15]
Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
You've written a lot of songs that will appear in rep books and will be used in auditions, but you've also written, I think in this show specifically, a lot of songs that people will maybe sing while crying in the shower, while getting over a relationship. I'm wondering which of those things is more exciting to you.
- [16:34]
Joey Contreras
I think music is so important to me and I love talking about music. I love making playlists. And the most meaningful thing that I hear is when people tell me that a song of mine underscored a breakup for them and was the soundtrack of a certain period of their life. And that's like just the ultimate compliment because I know how much I've leaned on music. And so, yeah, it's very moving to hear comments like that.
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Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
Yeah. Finally then, a lot of the success story of In Pieces has been getting
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Interviewer
it online, sharing it the world using
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Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
the fascinating tool of social media. Do you find it interesting to have seen so much success for this show that let's say a handful of shows, new musicals on the world's biggest stages coming to Broadway, aren't necessarily very forthcoming with getting the music out there? A lot of shows opening without they don't have a cast recording, but they also haven't necessarily shared things. In terms of what you've seen about building a fan base, do you think that's something that more composers and producers should embrace?
- [17:46]
Joey Contreras
I think it should be something that producers should be looking at when choosing the projects that they are investing in or bringing to certain theaters. I think it's definitely something that is still really hard to do and is not something that's so easily manufactured. There isn't a playbook for how to guarantee that there will be a fan base for something. And I have always really believed in again, this is like my pop MTV kind of guy in me. I early on thought it was really important to make video content showcasing songs in high quality ways because, you know, being a new writer, it's all about getting your song heard in a clear and great performance way. And sometimes a lot of times it ended up it was started off being like in concert scenes and you're always worried about, oh well, there's the bartender in the background shaking the drink and it becomes very like hard to hear the song. So I was like very early on making music video content for my songs and I feel like that is a very popular thing now. Everyone's making their studio videos, their concept albums and everything. And I think that's like a smart thing to do. But at the same time it means that like it is hard to penetrate through all of those. So I think that like it is important to do those things. But yeah, I mean I think what producers and theater owners and everyone should be looking is looking at what's kind of cutting through because sometimes you still see things and it's a little bit of a question mark on how it gets there. Sure. Yeah, sure.
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Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
Definite question marks. Well, it's been this really exciting rise to success for In Pieces. I cannot wait to go and see it in like 10 minutes time.
- [19:34]
Joey Contreras
I know.
- [19:35]
Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
I'll let you bask in the joy of your final arriving audience here in London, but thank you for taking the time to tell me a little bit more about it.
- [19:41]
Joey Contreras
I know it's so nice to meet you. I've watched your content and everything, so it'll be fun to now watch it having met you.
- [19:49]
Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
Yeah. Well, thank you so much.
- [19:50]
Interviewer
Thank you so much for listening to this interview. I hope that you enjoyed. Thank you so much to Joey and the whole team at In Pieces for taking the time to tell me a
- [19:57]
Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
little bit more about the show.
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Interviewer
If you are curious about the show, check out its social media pages and stay tuned for imminent updates. I'm not reviewing it at this stage, but I will say I was very excited by everything I saw and heard
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Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
at the other Palace.
- [20:09]
Interviewer
And as always, if you would like more interview content from me, let me know who you would like me to chat to next in the comments down below. In the meantime, make sure you're subscribed here on YouTube or following me on podcast platforms. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day
- [20:24]
Interviewer (Mickey Jo Theatre)
for 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day.
- [20:32]
Kelly
Subscribe.
- [20:38]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson 1
And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.
- [20:48]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson 2
Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his. What is this, your first date?
- [20:51]
Joey Contreras
Oh, no.
- [20:52]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson 1
We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual Together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
- [20:58]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson 2
Yeah, the bird looks out of your
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Liberty Mutual Spokesperson 1
league anyways, only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty.
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