Idina Menzel To Lead Reading Of Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill Musical
Idina Menzel is taking on Jagged Little Pill.
The Tony-winning actress will lead an upcoming reading of the new stage musical built around Alanis Morissette’s iconic 1995 album, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Though participating in the Actors’ Equity reading, Menzel won’t be in the debut run of the show at Cambridge’s American Repertory in May 2018, as she’s set to star in Joshua Harmon’s off-Broadway play Skintight. However, the show — development of which was first announced in 2013 — is believed to be eyeing an eventual Broadway debut. As with Matthew Morrison in Finding Neverland and Phillipa Soo in Amelie, actors who lead shows’ early workshops occasionally return to star in their Broadway runs.
Directed by Diane Paulus (Waitress), Jagged Little Pill will include orchestrations and arrangements by Tom Kitt (Next To Normal) and a book by Diablo Cody, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Juno who also co-created the series United States Of Tara and One Mississippi. The reading reunites Menzel with Kitt, one of the composers of Menzel’s 2014 Broadway musical If/Then.
Created by Cody in close creative consultation with Morissette, the show’s storyline revolves around a modern, multigenerational family and their complex dynamics, touching on issues of gender identity and race. Songs from Morissette’s groundbreaking album like “Ironic” and “Hand in My Pocket” will be performed in the musical, which will also feature melodies lifted from elsewhere in the singer’s extensive body of work.
Released in 1995, Jagged Little Pill was co-written with Glen Ballard and has sold more than 33 million copies worldwide to date. The album won five Grammy Awards out of nine nominations, including Album of the Year, making Morissette the youngest artist in history to receive the honor at the time.
Menzel — who became a global sensation with her powerhouse performance of “Let It Go” from Disney’s Frozen — originated roles in the musicals Rent and Wicked.
This article originally appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.