Broadhurst Theatre is proud to host a musical based on the themes of Alanis Morissette’s Grammy Award-winning album, Jagged Little Pill. The musical is designed to be a big-hearted production that breaks the mold according to an article by the New York Times. Tony Award winner, Diane Paulus, also known for Waitress and Pippin, directs Jagged Little Pill with a wickedly funny story written by Academy Award winner Diablo Cody. This story offers several powerful themes that speak to what everyone faces when they have to face ugly and unwelcome truths.
Jagged Little Pill Tickets:
When the show premiered on May 5, it quickly sold out through the end of its run on July 15, with only limited standing room tickets sold on the day of each show through July 14. Diablo Cody takes Morissette’s music and crafted a thoughtful and poignant story of suburban ills with clever thematic writing and associations. Critics praised the show’s strong cast and highlight several standout performances that you are sure to love. The design is vividly busy fitting the chaos of the show’s themes and the troubling and thought-provoking message it delivers.
Now, this incredible production has come to Broadhurst Theatre and this is your chance to enjoy the show. Don’t let this chance at seeing Alanis Morissette’s incredible album brought to the stage with Diane Paulus’ Jagged Little Pill. Order your tickets today while supplies last.
Stop Being Polite and Start Being Real
Jagged Little Pill tells the story of the Healys family who looks like the perfect picture of a happy suburban family. Mary Jane, Steve, and their teenage son and daughter Nick and Frankie have everything that society tells us a suburban family should have. But much like the music from Alanis Morissette that inspired the musical, things are not quite as simple as they appear. Mary Jane Healy is a mother obsessed with keeping her family the way she likes it, even at the cost of her happiness and health. Her obsession pushes her towards prescription pain pills that keep her going, but gives her a seemingly inescapable addiction. Mary Jane’s problems aren’t just internal, however, as her marriage to Steve Healey is distant and sexless as the couple tries to keep their issues quiet and focus on their family lives.
The children also struggle, from adopted daughter Frankie who struggles with her black identity because of her mother’s style of upbringing as well as her developing sexual identity with her best friend. On the other hand, Nick struggles with being the beloved son of the family and the realization that his best friend may have committed a terrible vile crime. The family does its best to keep their issues quiet and on the down-low, but when faced with disturbing events, the family is forced to face the ugly truths within their community, their family, and themselves.
The New York Times calls the musical a contender for the most woke musical since Hair, noting that it is steeped in very real issues like opiate addiction, gender identity, and sexual assault. Audiences and critics agree that this play is passionate, big-hearted, and compelling while tackling issues that society thinks about but never really faces.
Will the Healys overcome their traumas? You will have to order your tickets and visit to find out.
Why Paulus was chosen to direct Jagged Little Pill
When plans were made to adapt Alanis Morissette’s album, Jagged Little Pill into a Broadway musical of the same name, show producers knew they needed the right person at the helm for this landmark project. Diane Marie Paulus came out on top and it’s hardly a surprise why, when you consider her career.
Paulus is known as the Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director of the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University. She was selected for the 2014 Time 100 annual list of the most influential people in the world, largely due to her work with theater and opera. Her work earned her nomination for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for her revival of Hair, which she then won in 2013 for her revival of Pippin. Her contribution to the theatrical arts earned her the 2009 Harvard College Women’s Leadership Award as well as the IAL Diamond Award from Columbia University.
This notoriety and fame didn’t go unnoticed as magazine American Theatre selected Paulus to join 24 other theatre artists to share her vision of developments in the theatre world in the next 25 years. She commented that she had the goal of revolutionizing the theater experience with interactivity that would bring audience members closer to the story than ever before. She was also quoted in saying that theater had the power to make people more compassionate and cooperative citizens, which likely explains why she thrives in productions dealing with real-world issues.
Morissette’s music has always had an element of introspection, with the unspoken narrator or speaker for her most popular songs contemplating conditions, feelings, and emotions that weren’t often addressed elsewhere. So the partnership between Morissette and Paulus seemed like a match made in heaven, which is why the musical sold out during its opening running and could sell out again when it arrives at Broadhurst Theatre.
Information about Broadhurst Theatre
Broadhurst Theatre is a Broadway theatre located in Midtown Manhattan at 235 West 44th Street. The theatre was originally designed by Herbert J Krapp alongside the famed Shubert brothers. When the theatre opened on September 27, 1917, it was meant to resemble the style of the Shubert and Booth theaters nearby with less expensive brick and terra cotta materials in a neoclassical facade. The theater was named after George Howells Broadhurst, a dramatist who came to America in 1886 who was known as a playwright and theater manager in Milwaukee, Baltimore, and San Francisco. Broadhurst Theatre was designed for musicals and plays and has stood the test of time for over a century earning itself a designation as a major New York City landmark.
The theater’s well-regarded place in New York’s theatrical history has earned it several famous tenets including Les Misérables, a 2008 revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with an all-African American cast. The theater has also been used for the final performance of Jerry Seinfeld’s original stand up material which HBO filmed for a special after the finale of his long-running sitcom.
Jagged Little Pill starring Elizabeth Stanley and Derek Klena, is the latest production to grace the renowned and venerable stage, joining the 2017 musical adaptation of the animated film Anastasia and 2019’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune for the theater’s 2019 calendar. With an early November opening, Morissette’s fans and fans of intense live theatrical performances are already lining up to get tickets to see this musical.
Make sure you don’t miss out and order yours while supplies last.