It’s been a while since we’ve connected Ben! How are things at Spin?

Things are great. It’s been a very fun year. It’s such an exciting time to be at the company. There’s so much going on across all the different areas, from TV and movies to digital games, working on classics like Rubik’s or new properties like Ms. Rachel, plus new innovations like Bitzee… it just feels like there’s so much creativity going on in the organization, across every department.

You’ve been at Spin Master a very long time. I understand you’re overseeing a new group at now? What’s it called?

Yes. I oversee a development and marketing team that’s focuses specifically on new innovation and new brand launches… essentially bringing newness and new internal IP to the toy aisles, beyond our core areas and brands.

What’s the group called?

Ha, we do have a nickname for the group internally, but I avoid using it… I just call it the “New Brand Group”.

Why’s that?

There’s a long history in the toy industry of big companies that try to start these scrappy internal innovation groups to try to “stay nimble and entrepreneurial”, and they always give them these cute, edgy names and promote them as though they’re going to somehow going to revolutionize the whole the way things are done. In the end these initiatives are often pretty short-lived. At Spin, innovation’s always been such a big part of our core identity, so I don’t think it should have some “special” name here. It’s still just “what we do” as a company. We always try to focus a lot of energy on newness, so I prefer to not make too much noise about the group itself and just keep our heads down and focused on job of making great products… without too much hubris. Stuff that’s on strategy and has real upside and a real shot at doing great  Our objective is to just keep making great toys and try our best to keep creating the toy brands of the future.

And are you still working with inventors?

Oh 100%. This group in particular relies heavily on inventors. It’s all about finding and making great new stuff, so you definitely need the inventor community for that. And I also oversee Inventor Relations at Spin across the whole company. We’ve got a real dream team here, led by the great Helen De La Cruz, and Mike Bisogno on the games side, as well as Arielle, Nina, Rosalia. They’re such a great team, and we’re more invested than ever on inventor partnerships… in our core brands, but always still always hunting for the next big thing as well.

So, the reason I reached out to you was.. I heard you wrote a new musical about toys??? Is that true?

Ha… yes, it is.

Musical theatre? What’s it called?

“Toys”.

Fitting.

I thought so. I mean, just to be clear, I didn’t myself set out to write a musical about toys. It’s not like I didn’t have enough of toys in my life and just couldn’t help but to pour my heart into an all-singing, all-dancing musical production about them. I definitely get enough toys in my day job. But I’ve always loved musical theatre, and I was put in contact with a group of producers in London that were working on a new musical about toys and they were initially looking for a lyricist to come on board. A friend recommended I connect with them because I’ve done a fair amount of “semi-professional” songwriting – with Ben Varadi, and others - and obviously my background in the industry was an asset. I met with them and we really hit it off, so I wound up joining the project and in the course of working together we re-wrote much of the story and then created a whole new slate of songs, both writing and composing. It was quite an exciting creative endeavour.

So you do the music and lyrics? How long have you been working on it?

Yes, but it was a real collaboration with my partners. We’ve been working on it for about four years now, give or take. We started early in the pandemic, working back and forth remotely between Toronto and London.

And will it be on stage soon?

It actually just finished a first run in England. The producers mounted a production in December at a theatre in Watford, with a very talented cast of great West End performers. It was a small theatre, mainly just to get a first look at the how the show plays on a proper stage, so we could start to work things out. We just wrapped a  3 week run before Christmas. 

And how was it?

Y’know, I’d say it was a tremendous success. Mind you it was intentionally kept small so we could work the show out properly before bringing to larger audiences. So there were a lot of kinks still to iron out… to make the story more coherent, and sort out which moments worked better than others. But on the whole, for this early stage of development, I thought it was a great success. Really, it’s always been such a dream of mine to write a musical, so it was an incredible experience for me. Hearing and seeing your songs performed by a cast and crew of true professionals… it was a thrill.

Will we get a chance to see it?

I certainly hope so. It’s currently with the producers as they work out plans for the next stage of development and future productions. There’s a production, fundraising and investment process and much still needs to be worked out, but I’m hopeful we’ll see it soon on a larger stage. Musical theatre really is a long process. If you’re not a Disney property or Andrew Lloyd Webber, it takes a long time for a wholly original show to ever make its way to the West End or Broadway (not to suggest that’s where we’re headed). It has to pass many iterations and many hurdles along the way, so I’m just focused on the next stage. But I think it played quite well and I think holds a lot of promise, so we’ll see.

Please keep us posted of any future productions. I’m sure there are many in the industry who would love to see it.

Thank you. Maybe we’ll do a little “in concert” preview at one of the Toy Shows! Or better yet have some of the performers at next year’s UK Inventors’s Dinner! That would be amazing.

Thank you Ben, and good luck this year at Spin Master, and with your musical, Toys!

My pleasure. Great catching up, and thank you.