Interview: Composer Pippa Cleary on MY SON’S A QUEER’s New York debut and beyond
New York Besties, you're in luck: My Son's A Queer (But What Can You Do?) starring Rob Madge is finally getting its NYC debut this June! We spoke to co-songwriter Pippa Cleary, also known for writing the music and lyrics for The Great British Bake Off Musical and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, about the upcoming opening and more.
How are preparations going for the NYC debut of My Son's A Queer (But What Can You Do?), and how are you feeling now the opening is nearly here?
“I couldn’t be more thrilled - it’s been such a long time coming. We’ve been working on the score, even today, with the orchestrator Simon Nathan and our wonderful MD Julianne B. Merrill – who has fixed this fantastic band of four. It’s been backing tracked since the first incarnation of My Son’s A Queer, so this is the first time we’ve got live instruments which is so exciting for me as a composer. Me and Rob have also written a new intro for the band, some new underscore, a few different links – so we’ve kind of given is a little bit of a zhuzh, which is always fun to come back to there. There’s nothing I love more than having Rob Madge perform the show solo to me in my living room. Those are always fantastic days.”
You and Rob recently released the song “All in Good Time” from your follow-up show Regards to Broadway about My Son's A Queer’s 2024 Broadway postponement. Was writing and performing in this show a cathartic experience?
“It was incredibly cathartic and the song kind of wrote itself because we were just kind of talking about how it had all happened and how we were all feeling about it and what’s nice about being in such a good collaboration is that you are a support structure for each other, and you can lean on each other when times are tough. We always end up pepping each other up when we get on the piano and have a bit of a tinker. It always is amazing fun.”
The Great British Bake-Off Musical has been licensed for amateur performances and there are over 60 upcoming productions! How does it feel to have you work performed in so many towns, and will you be checking out any of the shows?
“I have now seen one! It was last week, I went with my boyfriend to Ilfracombe. He’s never seen the show, because we haven’t been together that long, so this was the first time he’d experienced the musical and for me, I was basically in tears of joy for the entire evening. It was a fantastic production, it was amazing. We went to the pub afterwards and the cast grilled me on questions and wanted to know how it had been written. It was wonderful to see their different interpretations, because it was the second license, so it’s still really early days. We’ve got another 60 over the next year and a half.
Me and the original West End music team – MD, orchestrator, associate – we’re all going to Ipswich in a few weeks to see that version. There’s a couple of versions in London as well that I’m definitely going to catch during the year as well as one down by my parents in Southampton. As a writer, there is no better feeling. I also took my boyfriend to see Durham University’s production of Adrian Mole recently, which is always so wonderful to see what other people do with your material.
Consistent feedback whenever there’s a licenced version of either Adrian More or Bake Off so far is that it’s much harder than it seems, especially musically. There’s a number in Bake Off called “Somewhere In The Dough”, which is in 7, then it goes back to 5, and then back to 7, and then to six. So from a musical point of view, there’s a lot of geekiness surrounding - ‘why it is unnecessarily difficult?’ - and I never have an answer for people, but I always enjoy people who nail the complicated time signatures. It’s very satisfying.”
You're currently working on the new musical Treasure Island with Jake Brunger. What should audiences expect from this show when it opens in December?
“I’m currently writing and working on it with Jake Brunger and Paul Foster. Paul is now a regular visitor to my living room, where the magic happens, and is such a delight to work with. Jake and I have collaborated together since we were 19 together, so we have a really shorthand and it’s always very high intensity, loud, lots of moving around the room, scatting all the parts and singing. Paul is just an absolute delight.
The other thing is that this is going to be an actor-muso show, which is new for us as the only other time we’ve done that was when we did Prodigy for NYMT (which is on Spotify). This will be working with the fantastic musical supervisor Sarah Travis, which I couldn’t be more thrilled about as I’ve wanted to work with Sarah for years. So we’re currently working out how the jigsaw puzzle of all the actor-musos is going to work.
I’m able to go fully into my Moana, happy folky place with some really great pirate numbers, folk songs, shanties and epic pirate villain extravaganzas. It’s more of an epic story which is really lovely to explore.”
Can you tell us a bit about your writing partnership with Jake?
“Luke Sheppard, the acclaimed director, who I met during a university production of Guys & Dolls – we were all at Bristol University together. Luke introduced me to Jake when we got some funding to take a musical to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. That was Jet Set Go, our very first musical. So Jake and I were paired together and kind of had to very quickly write a musical in about three months because I think we’d committed to the Fringe before having a show. So very quickly we learnt how to collaborate and went through the ups and downs that always come with starting a new collaboration and I’m really grateful to this day that we got all the ego stuff out of the way when we were very young because we do talk to each other like we’re brother and sister now. It can be very loud sometimes and very tempestuous but we’re very passionate about the work that we do.
We’ve written probably twelve shows together now, something like that, and we’ve also got another musical that we’re working on at the moment that I can’t talk about but we’re hoping to get that up and running at some point as well.”
Are you working on any other projects that we should look out for?
“Yes! There are two other projects that I’m working on at the moment. I’m working on a new musical, an adaptation of a Netflix film, with Rob Madge – which will open next Spring regionally. That is having another workshop this Summer, so we’re really excited about this. Writing something different with Rob has been an absolute joy.
I’m very lucky to be working with Rob and Jake at the same time and it feels utterly wonderful. It feels like being spoiled.
The other thing to look out for is we did a production of a fairytale, family musical I wrote called Snow White and Me in Missouri in America and I’m currently working on the cast album and that’s going to be out on Spotify later in the year. I’m really excited as that’s a big Disney sound that I’m very proud of.”