With the Powerful “Breakthrough,” Audible Reimagines Singing Competitions

“After years of no’s, setbacks, and second-place finishes, I’ve been given an opportunity,” says Mitch Clark, the winner of Breakthrough, Audible’s first-ever singing/songwriting competition series, which debuted in June 2023.

Over the course of ten episodes, listeners followed five contestants through an intimate musical journey, hosted by Grammy and Tony Award-winner Daveed Diggs (Hamilton, The Little Mermaid), as they competed for $100,000 and their big break. Along the way, they were mentored and critiqued by Grammy Award-winning judges Kelly Rowland (Destiny’s Child, The X Factor) and Sara Bareilles (Waitress, Into the Woods, Girls5eva), but with a twist: the judges had no idea what the contestants looked like, only how they sounded. As the show’s tagline says, Breakthrough is “where you don’t need to be seen to be heard.”

Clark and his fellow contestants, Johnna Booth, Blaze Johnson, Sasha McVeigh and Melanie Mickel, competed in a variety of singing and songwriting challenges over the weeks. In the initial challenge, contestants performed a self-representative song, and in the second, they wrote and recorded an original lullaby. Clark triumphed in the lullaby round despite not winning the first. “That was a huge shift in a positive direction, and validating to my songwriting abilities,” he says. “From there, I continued pushing forward, but with a new confidence.”

For the emotional live finale on June 22, the contestants flew to New York City, where they competed in person for the first time. With tears and shrieks of happiness, they greeted each other before taking to the stage. A curtain separated them from Bareilles and Rowland as each contestant sang the final original song they’d written for the competition.

After Rowland and Bareilles named Clark the winner, the curtain finally pulled away so the judges could meet their contestants face-to-face. “I heard my name called and I hit the floor,” says Clark, a pop/country musician residing in Nashville, TN, who closed out the competition with his original song, Nice to Meet You (My Name Is). Diggs praised the honesty that came through in Clark’s voice, and Rowland and Bareilles praised the vulnerability and reverence he brought to the craft by absorbing their critiques and growing throughout the show.

Audible worked with At Will Media to bring Breakthrough to life. “Audible has been excited for a long time about making this happen,” says Marlon Calbi, Audible director of content partnerships. He and Keith Wooten, Audible associate director of creative development, were tasked with an unusual challenge. Normally, a project’s final audio informs much of its marketing and creative, but the process for Breakthrough had to be reversed, since the show would be made in real-time. “A show of this kind had never been attempted, so Audible and At Will Media had to learn how to articulate exactly what it was first—not just to an audience, but to our potential host and judges, who we knew would help define the show in its first season.” It took several months to decide who would judge and host the groundbreaking series, but as Wooten says, “Once we found our people, the stars aligned.”

As for contestants, the team knew they wanted a broad range in terms of musical genres and personalities. They turned to talent scouts and search consultants, as well as casting calls from Audible’s marketing and social media teams. About 2,000 entries came in, and then several selection rounds began—a shared effort between Audible and At Will’s casting team. Calbi reports, “We were all happy with the choices made at the end of the day. Throughout every stage of this production, Audible and At Will collaborated very well together.”

One of the things that makes Breakthrough so compelling is the chemistry between Rowland and Bareilles—two musical megastars who felt like old friends as they riffed about their experiences—and hearing how much they genuinely cared about each contestant and wanted to see them succeed. As host, Diggs added his own personal touch, talking about his experience and struggles as a musician and performer. The overall effect was surprisingly intimate, with higher stakes, which made the finale—where everyone finally met each other in person—so powerful. “Can we hug them all now?” both judges exclaimed before embracing their contestants, everyone in tears. For all the contestants, the show has been a total game-changer. As Rowland said to Bareilles in the finale, “It’s about the breakthrough you have while being here.”

In addition to Audible, Breakthrough is available on leading platforms including Apple, Amazon Music, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Wondery, and all the songs featured in Breakthrough are on music-streaming services. Clark appeared at a special Breakthrough edition of WMX’s Songkick Live during Lollapalooza on August 2, and will also perform at iHeartRadio’s Music Festival in September.