INFORMAL: INTERVIEW WITH MICHA MIRTO AND JORDAN PAUL CLARKE

INFORMAL - AN INTERVIEW SERIES

MICHA MIRTO AND JORDAN PAUL CLARKE

Micha Mirto has established a heavy-hitting footprint across the London and regional fringe circuits as a director, dramaturg, and book writer. Based between Bristol and London, her foundational career features a strong focus on darkly comedic, collaborative narratives. She is a four-time Offie-nominated director and is a recurring directorial voice for Newsrevue, the world's longest-running satirical sketch show. Her work has consistently prioritised putting everyday people into highly abnormal, high-stakes scenarios.

Jordan Paul Clarke built his reputation across the West End primarily through high-calibre musical direction, composition, and lyric writing. He is widely known for his extensive work with Olivier Award-winning improvisational companies, serving as a musical director for flagship productions like Showstopper! The Improvised Musical and Mischief Movie Night. In 2022, his prominent score for the digital-age verbatim musical Public Domain at the Vaudeville Theatre earned him a nomination for Best Composer/Lyricist at The Stage Debut Awards.

The cross-pollination of Micha’s sharp dramaturgical framing and Jordan's musical versatility has solidified into a formal writing partnership, with their musical Raising Gays having a staged reading this weekend at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End.

As a brand new musical, I wanted to know what Raising Gays is about:

MM: "It's about the parents of queer people. It is just about the parents, so it's about their journey with their queer child. How they react when their child comes out, and it's about them trying to take steps forward in their relationship with their kid. We really focused on the grey area in between, so we're not talking about parents who are homophobic at their core, or parents that are amazing allies, but that in-between."

"The children don't feature in the piece, they are represented by musical instruments, so it really is just the parents' side of the story which, as far as we are aware, has not been done before."

JPC: "It's a six-hander musical, and one of the other unique things about Raising Gays is that it's for actors that are 35-40 plus. It's a musical for mature and experienced performers because all these roles are parents. We have a huge range of ages in the show, that are all dealing with their kids coming out or developing their queer lives in some way or another."

I wanted to know if the show was based on their personal experiences:

JPC: "Yes, definitely!" MM: "Absolutely. It's worth saying that the people in it are a composite of stories and experiences. It's not like I've taken my mum and put her into a character, although one character has my mum's name! We started this project by interviewing parents with queer children, and a lot of their answers have been wrapped into the development of this piece."

JPC: "It's also very much influenced by our own journeys. I came out to my mum when I was very young, and she went from being someone who found it really confusing and telling me it was a phase, to becoming a really special ally. Those sort of journeys we saw our parents go through are the ones we've written this musical about."

Looking back at my personal story, I remember the change in my dad's attitude once I came out, even if he struggled with things such as the correct terminology:

JPC: "That's what our show is about. Parents don't go from being evil homophobic villains to perfect angelic queer allies overnight. That's not how it happens. They have to go on a journey, and will be making mistakes. That's what we wanted to write about because it's just not talked about. It doesn't reach our stages, and it certainly doesn't reach musical theatre."

My mum was supportive but seemed worried about how difficult it would be for me, especially with how people viewed the queer community:

MM: "I think that's a broadly experienced situation, because most parents' reaction is about the concern for their child. I think my experience was similar to yours - my mum thought it would make my life more difficult. It obviously comes from a good place, and with time and care that can evolve and change. That definitely feeds into one of the storylines in the musical."

I'm reminded of a TV show I saw when I was about 15 where a mother finds out her son is gay, and it's pointed out that all she's thinking about is the sex side of things, and not anything else:

MM: "It wasn't that long ago that people were correlating gay sex with AIDS, which is obviously a hugely terrifying thing. I think the culture around that is better now, but for a generation not that far away, that fear is still there."

I wondered what the driving force was behind wanting to create this musical, and tell these stories:

JPC: "Firstly, it's that thing where you discover a story that you didn't know needed to be told, and suddenly you can't stop thinking about it. Micha and I have wanted to write something for a long time, and we had to find the idea. I was having a chat with my mum after we'd seen some queer fringe musicals, and she said she didn't think the shows were for her. That was when the first spark landed. We're so lucky to be able to see ourselves on stage and screen now, but my mum hasn't really had the chance to see herself represented. Often the parent is sidelined and I had the impulse to put those stories front and centre."

When I read about the concept of this musical, I genuinely wondered why no one had thought of doing something like this before: MM: "We are constantly asking that question!"

We then spoke about queer representation on stage and screen, and why it's taken so long for queer stories to be told authentically:

MM: "I think visibility and representation is so important, and for our community, there isn't a huge amount of it. It's beginning to happen more and more, but it's still quite rare. This means that when we get queer narratives we zone in on that arc and that character, and the people around them are not as well fleshed out as they might be, which is why I think this gap exists for us. There's some incredibly interesting, nuanced, and loving things around the edge, and these are the stories we're telling. The more non-judgemental conversations that we have can be a catalyst for the better."

JPC: "That's definitely a mission statement! We're constantly discovering what this show can do, and our mission is definitely to create conversations without judgement. That's why we're showcasing the other side of the story. It feels like a natural progression from shows such as It's a Sin, Queer as Folk, and Heartstopper. Raising Gays is the next step, turning the tables and checking in on the other side."

With the current political climate, and all the hate towards our community in the world, it feels like a really important time for Raising Gays to be coming onto the scene:

MM: "What hate really needs to thrive is polarisation. You can't hate something gently, you have to go all in. For that to happen you probably need an imagined or real opposition. What we need to start doing is having conversations and recognising the humanity in each other, and the wider we can expand the grey area, the less space there is for hate. This obviously goes with the caveat that there are some people who are hateful, and there are places that are desperately unsafe for our community and I would not want for anything I'm saying to be taken as an "it'll all be fine, just have a chat" because we know that in some situations that's not the case. But in this country, and in the families we're depicting in Raising Gays, that is the case. A chance for that grey area to expand, even though it's uncomfortable, is important. Hopefully it'll filter out slightly into wider communities."

I wanted to know about the process of going from having the idea for this musical, into creating it:

JPC: "Very good question! It's different for every musical, but you just have to go for it. You have to sit down and start creating material. We started a relationship with a producer very early because she was a friend and I knew she'd care about this show. Micha and I had flash cards out with all the ideas of things that could possibly happen, I wrote a couple draphs of songs, and then we stood back and looked at what we were actually creating. At one point we were going to write a sort of concert based on this idea, but Micha was the first to spot that this was a story-led musical. It really was a full musical. We realised how universal this story is, and this show is about actively listening to each other."

"After that we just had to do it, and got to try out some of the material at a lunchtime spot, and since then it's just been an uphill climb to try and get this musical on."

MM: "It is about diving in, and I felt a bit possessed by these characters! We were planning a sort of song cycle, but I realised there were more songs and full arcs for these characters. We had lots of sessions, and we just did it - with deadlines! A few hairy deadlines really helped the process!"

JPC: "Otherwise you just sit and think and there's no motivation to really show people what you're making. At the end of the day, if you want to make a musical you have to share it and let people in."

MM: "Even in our last rehearsal period something wasn't quite working in a scene, so I went home - with a deadline of the next morning - and wrote something new. I wouldn't advise that but it was certainly productive!"

JPC: "It was also incredibly good!"

Actor friends of mine who are in their forties are creating their own work at the moment because they feel like they're in a weird in between age, and there just aren't the roles available to them for their age:

JPC: One of the biggest things was thinking about who this musical was for on stage as well as in the audience. Who's going to be performing this, and from day one we thought we could have a musical that the brilliant cohort of older actors who have trod the boards in the West End for 30 years could be part of. The actors who don't have a huge amount of parts available to them, and those roles all get cast the same. There's a ton of other people out there that deserve some meaty roles in a musical, and I think one of our goals was to give those people some nuanced journeys to go on that really show them at their best, because they are incredible. The cast we have are extraordinary and are such a big part of the process, bringing their own experiences and perspectives to the roles. With our show you won't just see one amazing actor of that demographic, you'll see six."

There's a presentation of the musical coming up on Sunday 5th July and I wanted to know what the audience can expect. Is this a bare bones workshop, or is it at full-blown production?:

MM: "It is a concert reading, so it's literally scripts in hand, music stands, and it's a read-sing-through. There is no staging, it's really just us showing what we've made, and we now want to hear from an audience. Also, we prioritised the cast, because they're extraordinary, but they are busy. Because we really wanted to work with this specific cast, this is what we have time for and this is what we're doing. It is a concert reading, but I think it's going to be really fun."

It's exciting that this is happening on a big West End stage:

JPC: "We're a bit baffled! it's such a big-hearted, emotional piece that I do believe that even without bells and whistles, it's going to fill people's hearts. It's a gift that it's over Pride weekend as well, which is so brilliant."

"A lot of West End concerts of new musicals are big productions and have full choreography, costumes etc, and that's a bit intimidating because that's not where we're at. We've been very open about that, and in some ways it's more exciting because people get to see the bare bones of the show, and get to imagine what it would be like as a full-blown West End production. There's songs we've never shown anyone before so this is a really exciting premiere."

The fact that this is a ticketed event for the public, rather than a closed industry presentation, is a really brave thing to do:

MM: "I think it's necessary as we're always asking who this is for. It's obviously important to have industry folk come along and tell us what they think, but it's also really important for us to know whether we're hitting the mark with people that just go to the theatre because they love going to the theatre. They're the people, that if this continues as we hope it will, need to show up."

JPC: "In Birmingham when I first sang some of these songs I couldn't leave the building. There was a queue forming of people who wanted to chat with me, and they all had their own perspectives on the material. This show gives people permission to recognise their own story, and the value of their own journey."

It's that thing of every story having value:

JPC: "There's one song from the show that I sing regularly at cabarets when I talk about the show. The concept is really simple. It's a mother in her fifties whose daughter came out to her and then left for university, and her reaction was not kind. The song is the mother leaving the daughter a voicemail and trying to reconnect, and you see how much she's hurting. That separation between parent and child, whether they're queer or not, resonates with people."

Why should people come and see this presentation of Raising Gays?:

MM: "I think it's a great night out. It's funny and big-hearted, and it's quite likely that people will see themselves in it."

JPC: "I also think it's a show you should bring your mum and dad to see, because this show is about them. It's going to show them that you care about the things they have to say. It might open up conversations you need to have, it might offer you a space to laugh about things you need to laugh at, and the show is there so that parents and children can see themselves and feel supported. Also, it's hilarious!"

"It's the gayest new musical you'll see without any gays in it!"

There's the tagline for the poster!

To find out more about Raising Gays, follow their Instagram page HERE

You can literally count the remaining tickets for Sunday's show on one hand, so click the link below to grab yours before it's too late

>>> RAISING GAYS TICKETS <<<

Interview conducted by Neill Kovacic-Clarke for Pink Prince Theatre on 17/06/26

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