Clay Nation News Talks to "Idol: The Musical" Producer

Corabeth at Clay Nation News recently spoke with the producers of the off-broadway musical, Idol: The Musical - now playing in New York - based on Clay Aiken, Claymania and us... Claymates. Here is a snippet of the interview - the full interview is available in your email inboxes (for C.N.N. subscribers) and a full version should be up at the Clay Nation News website soon.

Clay attended a Friday night showing of the show last week.

CB: Tell me about the creative process

Todd: It was my concept. I had been working in Syracuse for the last twelve years producing over 100 shows and I wanted to move to New York City.

I really wanted to do something about pop culture but the positive side of pop culture. American Idol stuck out as being one of the biggest things in pop culture and so I thought back about the show to decide which person embodied both pop culture and a positive image and I chose Clay. I came up with three songs and the titles of all the others and I hired Bill and Jon and they ran with it.

CB: Why Clay?

Todd: Well, he's from North Carolina and I'm originally from the South, Kentucky and Tennessee. I can relate to him, I was a geek in high school and so I related to the original Clay that we met in the auditions. But, he had the makeover I'm 45 and I'm still a geek.

CB: You chose American Idol as your pop culture reference, why?

Todd: I watched a little of Season 1 and I really watched Season 2. What I loved was the camaraderie between Clay and Ruben, it was real. I think Clay should have won but Ruben has a great voice.

CB: They have stayed friends.

Todd: I think that's great! Clay was the classic underdog story and in many ways still is. It would have been easy for him to just fade away and instead he went to the top.