Two Joes Unite to Bring Be More Chill and Diary of a Wimpy Kid to the Stage

How hard is it to get a writer's attention in rehearsal when both of them are named Joe? Joe No. 1 is Iconis, author of shows like the Drama Desk-nominated Bloodsong of Love and the composer and lyricist behind tunes like "Broadway, Here I Come" and "Blue Hair." Joe No. 2 is Tracz, a rising playwright whose musical The Lightning Thief received a 2015 Lortel Award nomination. Together, they're collaborating on a pair of new musicals based on staples of young adult literature.

The first is Be More Chill, now in performance at Two River Theater. Adapted from the sci-fi novel of the same name by Ned Vizzini, it's the story of teenage loser Jeremy, who purchases and ingests a pill that implants a computer in the brain and gives one the confidence to be cool. The second is Diary of a Wimpy Kid the Musical (inspired by the Jeff Kinney book), which will have its premiere in 2016 at Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis.

Between reliving and writing about their schoolboy memories, Iconis and Tracz sat down to discuss what brought them together, how they're dealing with collaborating for the first time, and why one is most likely to find an awkward high-schooler chilling in the bathroom.

How did you two connect with each other and the book Be More Chill?
Joe Iconis: We have a shared agent, Scott Chaloff, at William Morris. A few years ago, he read this book and thought it would make a great musical, and I think he separately thought of both of us. We didn't know each other at the time. He sent me the book, and I responded to it immediately. He said, "You have to work with this other Joe." So we were put together, which I feel like is usually such a recipe for disaster. [laughs]

Joe Tracz: I've known Joe's work since I saw Bloodsong of Love at Ars Nova. I knew the book because I used to work in a bookstore, in the young-adult children's section. Ned's books got readers who wouldn't go into the young-adult children's section of the bookstore. He was like a prodigy. He wrote Be More Chill when he was twenty. He captured what it means to be a teenager, along with all of the awkward, honest details you don't really get [in other pieces of literature].

Iconis, this is your first time writing with someone in several years. Tracz, this is your first musical. How did you get along writing together?
Iconis: It was a great collaboration. I guess I feel like it should have been a disaster, but it was just so easy. Like anything, you find your footing.

Tracz: I feel like Joe and I have a very similar voice in the kinds of characters we write about. We would talk about inspirations, like Little Shop of Horrors and Idle Hands. That's our vocabulary.

Iconis: There's so much common ground. We complement each other very well, with this core of overlapping inspirations and sensibility.

How closely does it stick to the story of the book?
Iconis: It sticks to the book in spirit and tone and vibe. Story-wise, we stick to the first two-thirds of the book and then we take it into a different direction. I think we were both excited to figure out what we have to add to the material. The way the story played out wouldn't necessarily be a great fit for a musical. The book is first-person, and the amazing thing about musicals is that you can get different perspectives. The characters became more fleshed-out human beings.

Tracz: That was our challenge in writing it. He has this girl of his dreams, but we don't get to know her other than from his point of view. The story is so much about Jerry's point of view and how he thinks no one understands his experience. And then, he gets this computer in his brain, and when more than one person has it, they can link to each other and can understand each other. Part of the experience of the story then became about this kid realizing that everyone has issues and insecurities.

Did you start reliving your own high school memories?
Iconis: Definitely. I don't think there's a character that is the stand-in for me, but there's definitely moments in there that I ripped from moments in my own life. There are a lot of bathrooms in the show. That's something I related to so much, having places to hide. There's a song in the show called "Michael in the Bathroom," and it's about this kid who's at a party and is hiding because he doesn't want to go out to the party, which is so something that I did, many times throughout high school, and before and after high school. Hiding in the bathroom is in my blood.

Tracz: Writing it, we thought, Oh, they'll probably use the same bathroom set. We saw the set designs and there are four different bathrooms. It's amazing.

Speaking of school years and hiding in bathrooms, you're also collaborating on a high-profile musical version of the YA series Diary of a Wimpy Kid. How did that come about?
Iconis: We were interviewing for it separately, and I don't think we knew that the other one was under consideration. It's a fairly fancy project. Kevin McCollum is producing it, Twentieth Century Fox is involved. So we were interviewed by ourselves and then found out that they were looking at the two of us collectively.

Tracz: The book itself has a lot of set pieces that are similar to Be More Chill. They both have scenes that take place on Halloween, and on the first day of school. So there's a lot of overlap, but what those things are when you're in middle school [like in Wimpy Kid] is so different from what they are when you're in high school [like in Be More Chill]. The emotional experience is so different.