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As more and more artists from the pop world add writing a Broadway musical to their career-goal lists, Sara Bareilles stands out as one of the brightest success stories from that group.
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Waitress — the musical adaptation of Adrienne Shelly’s beloved independent film, featuring music and lyrics by Bareilles — was an unequivocal Broadway hit, running for nearly four years after an opening in April 2016.
That year, Bareilles’ score earned her two Tony nominations (out of a total four for the show), and she went on to perform the lead role of Jenna for three different stints. The production played London’s West End as well as internationally, garnered a Grammy nomination for its original Broadway cast recording, and yielded both a standalone Bareilles album (What’s Inside: Songs From Waitress, released on Epic Records between the show’s off-Broadway and Broadway runs) and a film of the stage show (which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2023).
Sara Bareilles performs during the curtain call for Broadway’s “Waitress” at The Brooks Atkinson Theatre on March 31, 2017 in New York City.
Noam Galai/Getty Images
Now, Bareilles — who’s been warmly embraced by the wider theater community, and racked up another Tony nomination last year for her portrayal of The Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods — is making her return to Broadway.
She’s writing the music and lyrics for The Interestings, an adaptation of the New York Times bestselling novel by Meg Wolitzer with a book by Pulitzer- and Tony-nominated playwright Sarah Ruhl.
The plot of Wolitzer’s novel revolves around character Jules Jacobson and her friends from an exclusive childhood arts camp (the titular Interestings, as they call themselves) who grow up to find varying degrees of success and satisfaction or disillusionment with where a creative life has led them.
When it came out in 2013, the Times called it “warm, all-American, and acutely perceptive about the motivations of its characters,” likening it to modern Great American Novels and praising Wolitzer’s “inclusive vision and generous sweep.” With its complex, layered female protagonist and diverse cast of characters, as well as the knotty themes it explores — ranging from what qualifies as success to whether being extraordinary is the only path to it — the book seems rich material for musical adaptation, and it’s easy to see why it appealed to Bareilles, whose Waitress balanced the buoyant with the bittersweet.
The Interestings is being produced by Matt Ross, and is currently in development; additional creative team and production details will be announced in the coming months.

Since its Broadway premiere in 1981, Stephen Sondheim‘s Merrily We Roll Along has been struggling to, well, get back to Broadway. The musical about 20 years of friendship between composer Franklin Shepard, lyricist Charley Kringas and writer Mary Flynn — which unfolds onstage in reverse chronological order, starting when that friendship has dissolved and all […]
The Oak View Group will unveil its Theater Fund during the inaugural gala for the OVG Theater Alliance headlined by Rachel Platten, Jake Wesley Rogers, Lindsay Ell and country a cappella group Home Free at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville on Oct. 11.
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“Part of our mission at OVG is to identify ways we can help our members,” says Joe Giordano, vice president of OVG’s three facilities groups — the Arena Alliance, Stadium and the recently launched Theater Alliance, which debuted in January. The Theater Fund will be operated in collaboration with Music’s Promise as a 501(C)3 that will support Theater Alliance members, many of which operate through or with non-profit entities.
“We will take all the money raised from the fund and divy them up equally between all the foundation non-profits in the Theater Alliance,” Giordano explained, noting that 21 foundations will benefit from the event.
The goal is to help Alliance members rebuild in a challenging post-pandemic environment for arts organizations, which are dealing with decreased attendance, a decline in annual subscriptions, gaps in government support, rising costs and competition with more modern buildings.
While the concert business has bounced back strong from the pandemic, along with Broadway, “fine arts based organizations have indicated to us that they have lost audiences since the pandemic that they will never get back. The revenue piece has been a key component of whats missing for many of these groups.”
Platten told Billboard in a statement, “It’s my honor to give back to the establishments that have been so crucial in hosting the most influential live entertainment in our country.”
In addition to the live performances and a silent auction, attendees at the gala can network with high-level Industry executives, promoters, agents and managers.
Tim Leiweke, chairman and CEO of Oak View Group, said, “The Theater Alliance has enabled Oak View Group to gather the top theaters and performing arts venues in the nation to keep our finger on the pulse of this vibrant and essential corner of our industry. We know that – especially coming out of the pandemic – funding is critical for theaters to thrive and support their communities, and we have droves of talent, promoters, managers and industry leaders who are going to see to it that these venues have access to the resources they need to succeed.”
After a successful 2022 run in Chicago, The Notebook’s next chapter will be on Broadway. The musical, based on Nicholas Sparks’ wildly successful 1996 novel, features music and lyrics from Ingrid Michaelson and a book by Bekah Brunstetter. Michael Greif (Dear Evan Hansen, Grey Gardens) and Schele Williams (Aida) will direct, with choreography by Katie Spelman (Moulin […]
Throughout the summer of 2023, London’s Globe Theatre brought to life the ribald fantasy world of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of William Shakespeare’s best-loved comedies. Each night, as the sun disappeared beneath the moss-covered rim of the open-air theatre, a troupe of dexterous pros delivered the words of Western world’s most famous author just a stone’s throw from the Thames River. As befitting the 16th century source material, the production featured fairies, forests, iambic pentameter and men running around in baggy pantaloons — plus, club music pulsating in the background.
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No, the Globe Theatre isn’t a victim of noise pollution — the thumping dance music was an intentional choice in the Elle While-directed production, which tapped composer James Maloney to deliver a few sonic surprises for this production of the 1590s play. Needless to say, Shakespeare (or Marlowe, if you’re a conspiracy theorist) wasn’t a known rave enthusiast, but what’s even more surprising is that everything you hear during a Globe performance is purely acoustic — meaning there’s no knobs, speakers or motherboards lending these dancefloors vibes to the Bard of Avon’s words.
So how do a handful of musicians using zero electronics create a soundscape that could pass for the 3am DJ set wafting out of a London hotspot like Fabric or Heaven? “It was simple, but it took a bit of workshopping,” Dream composer James Maloney insists to Billboard over coffee on a balmy afternoon. The formally trained, West Midlands-born head of music at the Globe may be a just a touch humble. After all, his techniques are not exactly intuitive – or even easy for the layman to understand. For the club music effect, Maloney directed a tubist to play on the off beats while an orchestral bass drummer softly accompanied a player on the double kick drum: “When the kick drum plays, the volume of the bass goes down, creating the womp-womp, which has become a signature of dance music,” he clarifies. (Elementary, right?)
The 2023 production of Dream offered numerous outside-the-box aural delights, including “droney, ethereal sounds” elicited by rubber balls brushed over metal sheets, as well as a disorienting zhing effect created by a metal rod slapped against “a piece of a lorry we found knocking about a workshop.” All of this – not the mention the Charlie Mingus-influenced jazz that opens the production – lends this version of the classic “a slightly menacing, chaotic edge” that prevents it from feeling like a recurring Dream you’ve experienced before.
“You have to be playful and experimental,” Maloney says of his approach to the production’s score. When asked if some patrons object to the inclusion of modern sounds in a centuries-old play written by England’s most revered scribe, Maloney looks off and responds diplomatically. “Naturally, people can have an opinion about what it should be, and occasionally there’s a sense of, ‘It should be more this, less this.’ But the way I approach it is that the Globe is and has always been a bit of an experiment.”
It’s undeniable that the Globe as it stands today is not your grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s (and so on) Globe. The original theatre burned down in 1613, and the second Globe that Shakespeare built was torn up sometime in the 1640s. In 1997, this theater – which is a meticulous reconstruction of the original – opened to much fanfare but uncertain long-term prospects. It was a gamble that paid off: In a city stuffed with historical attractions, it’s emerged as a top tourist destination, drawing international visitors and thousands of U.K. citizens who live outside of London. So even if some bristle at the contemporary flourishes, the inventiveness of Globe’s high-caliber productions makes amends ere long.
“Some people come to nearly every performance, and I mean that literally,” Maloney says. One high-profile example: Art-rock icon Kate Bush saw the Globe’s 2013 version of Dream more than a dozen times; she even subsequently used the production’s choreographer, Siân Williams, as the movement director for her 2014 residency at the Hammersmith Apollo in London.
So, to borrow a phrase coined by Shakespeare, the long and the short of it is that the Globe Theatre has paved a brick-lane path that evokes history but isn’t a prisoner to it, which allows the crew and players the opportunity to interpret hallowed material in novel ways.
Michelle Terry as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe.
Helen Murray
The recent production of Dream is a testament to this. While the play has inspired everything from Hollywood flicks to a George Balanchine ballet to music from Felix Mendelssohn, the 2023 iteration somehow manages to deliver a fresh take on the source material. Most stage versions depict an orderly Athens that’s juxtaposed with a whimsical forest. In the hands of While’s production, Athens is a bit of a party town, imbued with a barely restrained libido. As Maloney puts it, “The forest is to Athens like a smoking area is to a club.” With that in mind, Maloney went about crafting music and sonic cues that are “a strange refraction of senses and sounds,” conjuring “the idea of a night club next door where you can just hear the music.”
Maloney’s experimental bent might be a symptom of his unusual road to working in a world-renown theater. “Where I’m from, there’s very little with regards to theater,” he says of his upbringing outside Birmingham. “It never felt like an option. Music didn’t really, either, except for the fact that I could study it.” After poring over music composition during his time at Oxford, he graduated in 2011, moved to Paris and began working at a bakery. When an Internet listing for a music-related job at the Globe caught his eye, he sent in an application with no expectations, figuring his music background was “too formal” and his lack of theater credentials would prove to be a nonstarter. To his surprise, he heard back, returned to London for an interview and got the gig.
As it turned out, theater experience wasn’t exactly necessary for the position he occupied when he started at the Globe in 2013 – it was a lot of photocopying, tea fetching and other operational tasks. After several years of working “in a creative environment without doing creative stuff,” he channeled his energy into recording Gaslight, a DIY album of minimalist, meditative music, at his parents’ house. In what Maloney describes as “an act of enormous generosity,” the acclaimed theater director Matthew Dunster – who worked at the Globe from 2015-2017 – was impressed enough with his side hustle that he asked Maloney to help with some of the music on a 2016 production of Cymbeline, titled Imogen. Following that, Maloney was invited to score a 2017 Globe staging of Much Ado About Nothing, which “changed everything” for him.
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Now, Maloney regularly composes scores for Shakespearean productions (in addition to other theatrical gigs) while maintaining his role as head of music at the Globe Theatre. The latter position is a jack-of-all-trades job that involves finding musicians proficient in unusual instruments (while his scores veer toward the modern, many other Globe productions include antiquated instruments like the sackbut and shawm), troubleshooting rough patches during rehearsals and assisting other composers with the unexpected challenges endemic to composing music for an open-air space with exclusively acoustic instruments.
“The most surprising thing that you, as a composer, go through [when working on a Globe production] is the process where you cease to be a musician and become, for want of a better expression, a theater maker. You find yourself sacrificing musical ideas for dramatic decisions. You have to say, ‘That bit of your music that’s your favorite bit, we’re not doing it, because it doesn’t work with the storytelling.’ Or, ‘It’s too loud, you can’t hear the actor.’
“You’re the person sacrificing, because you instinctively know the production works better without it,” he continues. “It’s not just the music – it’s broader than that. It’s such an intense, exhausting experience. Saying 400-year-old words and dressing up, it’s not brain surgery — but it feels important when you’re doing it and there’s all these personalities and vulnerabilities in a room. It’s very meaningful.”
A musical based on the classic 1959 Billy Wilder film Some Like It Hot was the top winner at the 67th Annual Drama Desk Awards, which were announced on Wednesday (May 31). The show — for which Mariah Carey is one of the producers — won eight awards, including outstanding musical and outstanding lyrics for […]

Sara Bareilles, Vanessa Williams and Ledisi are among the artists who will be featured on Great Performances: Celebrating 50 Years of Broadway’s Best, which premieres Friday, May 12, at 9 p.m. ET on PBS and the PBS app.
The program, which marks Great Performances’ golden anniversary, is a revue of milestone Broadway shows from 1973 to 2023. The special will feature a mix of original stars and up-and-coming talent. Hosted by two-time Tony winner Sutton Foster, the program was taped on March 23 at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater in New York.
Bareilles sings “She Used to Be Mine” from Waitress (for which she received a 2016 Tony nomination for original music score). Williams, who earned a 2002 Tony nod her performance in Into the Woods, performs a song from Kiss of the Spider Woman, which brought Broadway legend Chita Rivera her second Tony.
Other highlights of the special include Rivera performing her signature song “All That Jazz” from Chicago; André De Shields performing “So You Wanted to See the Wizard” from The Wiz; a tribute to A Chorus Line featuring Tony-winning original cast member Donna McKechnie joined by Robyn Hurder; and a tap number from Jelly’s Last Jam performed by Corbin Bleu.
Other performers on the show include Brian Stokes Mitchell, Jessie Mueller, Raúl Esparza, Shoshana Bean, Norm Lewis, Rob McClure, Patina Miller, Mamie Parris, Solea Pfeiffer, Britton Smith and Jessica Vosk.
The show features songs by such composers as Stephen Schwartz, John Kander & Fred Ebb, Fats Waller, Stephen Sondheim, Duke Ellington and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Great Performances: Celebrating 50 Years of Broadway’s Best is directed and choreographed by Tony winner Warren Carlyle with Patrick Vaccariallo as music director. The program was directed for television by David Horn, produced by Mitch Owgang and co-produced and written by Dave Boone.
One week later, on Friday, May 19, at 9 p.m. ET, Great Performances will air the Public Theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park production of Richard III starring Danai Gurira (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Walking Dead) with Tony winner Ali Stroker (Oklahoma!) as Lady Anne. Tony nominee Robert O’Hara (Broadway’s Slave Play) directs this Shakespearean tragedy.
One week after that, on Friday, May 26, at 9 p.m. ET, there will be an encore presentation of Cole Porter’s classic 1934 musical Anything Goes, starring Foster (who won her second Tony for the 2011 Broadway production) as well as Tony winner Robert Lindsay. The show, restaged in London’s West End, was directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall. Featuring such classic songs as “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “You’re the Top” and the title song, the show first aired on PBS last year.
This is the season for Broadway programming. The 76th annual Tony Awards, hosted by Ariana DeBose, are set for Sunday, June 11. The show will be held at the United Palace in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood.
Throughout its 50-year history on PBS, Great Performances has amassed 67 Emmy Awards and six Peabody Awards. The series is produced by The WNET Group. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is series producer and David Horn is executive producer.
Tim Rice will be the 2023 recipient of the Johnny Mercer Award at the 52nd annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Dinner, which is slated for Thursday, June 15, at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.
Rice, who teamed with Andrew Lloyd Webber to write such classics as Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, is the first songwriter primarily known for his work in theater to receive this award since Stephen Sondheim in 1999.
Rice is the second EGOT recipient to receive the Johnny Mercer Award – following Alan Menken. The two songwriters shared an Oscar and three Grammys for their work on Aladdin.
He’s the fifth songwriter or songwriting team from the U.K. to receive the honor, following Jule Styne (1993), Phil Collins (2010), Elton John & Bernie Taupin (2013) and Van Morrison (2015).
The Mercer Award, the SHOF’s highest honor, is reserved for a songwriter or songwriting team who has already been inducted in a prior year and whose body of work upholds the standards set by Johnny Mercer, a four-time Oscar-winner.
“I am truly honoured to be chosen to receive the Johnny Mercer Award,” Rice said in a statement. “My induction into the SHOF in 1999 was itself a highlight of my writing career and I never expected to receive any further recognition from the most distinguished gathering of songwriters in the world. So, I am bowled over (a cricketing metaphor) with gratitude. I have attended quite a few SHOF events in the past 25 years and they have always been among the most enjoyable of entertainment world extravaganzas – unpretentious, unpredictable, and spectacular. So, June 15, 2023, is a golden booking in my electronic diary.”
Inductees at this year’s Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Dinner are Sade Adu, Glen Ballard, Snoop Dogg, Gloria Estefan, Jeff Lynne, Teddy Riley and Liz Rose. The recipient of a second honorary award, the Hal David Starlight Award, will be announced at a later date.
SHOF Chairman Nile Rodgers said, “Tim Rice is an artisan. He has crafted some of the greatest lyrics and stories in musical history with Jesus Christ Superstar, and his incredible work with Andrew Lloyd Webber being amongst my favorites.”
Rice has won an Emmy, five Grammys, three Oscars and three Tonys. He won an Oscar and three Grammys for his work on Aladdin; two Tonys, a Grammy and an Oscar for Evita and its film adaptation; a Tony and a Grammy for Aida; an Oscar for The Lion King and an Emmy for Jesus Christ Superstar: Live in Concert.
Rice has worked in music, theatre, and films since 1965. In addition to his work with Webber, Rice has worked with such other top composers as Elton John (The Lion King, Aida), Menken (Aladdin, King David, Beauty and the Beast) and Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson (Chess). He has also written with Freddie Mercury, Burt Bacharach and Rick Wakeman, among others.
Rice’s recent musical From Here to Eternity returned to London in November 2022. A new Broadway presentation of Chess is set to open in the fall of 2023. In early 2024, a new production of Aida will make its U.K/West End début. Rice is currently writing and presenting a podcast, Get Onto My Cloud, in which he reminisces about his years in music, theater and film.
Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond will star in Parade on Broadway this spring, reprising their leading roles in the Tony-winning musical following a sold-out New York City Center run.
On Tuesday producers announced the Michael Arden-directed production will open at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre for a limited engagement run starting March 16. Previews will begin on Feb. 21 with a final performance slated for Aug. 6.
“Jason Robert Brown’s and Alfred Uhry’s masterpiece, Parade, is one of the most beloved musicals of the past 25 years. Whenever you mention the show to a theater fan, they light up talking about the first time they saw a production or heard a recording,” producers Seaview and Ambassador Theatre Group said in their own statement. “At City Center, Michael Arden mounted a magnificent production with incandescent performances from Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond that had audiences enraptured. We are overjoyed that we can bring this to Broadway so more people can experience Parade anew.”
The production, written by Pulitzer Prize winner and Academy Award winner Alfred Uhry with music and lyrics by Tony-winner Jason Robert Brown, stars Platt and Diamond as Leo and Lucille Frank, a newlywed Jewish couple already struggling to build a life in the old red hills of Georgia when Leo is accused of an unspeakable crime. It’s an event that propels them both into an unimaginable test of faith, humanity, justice and devotion.
“Twenty-five years ago, we were honored to bring the story of Leo Frank to the musical stage, guided by our visionary director, Hal Prince,” Uhry and Brown said in a statement. “It was an extraordinary gift to watch a whole new audience connect with Parade at City Center under the thrilling direction of a new visionary: Michael Arden. We couldn’t be more grateful that this production is now moving to Broadway, where even more people will get to see Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond deliver phenomenal performances and lead this large and gifted cast.”
After tickets went on sale Tuesday, users trying to buy tickets on Telecharge reported experiencing long wait time and error messages, in part because of demand and also because of the start of the discounted Broadway Week. “After experiencing overwhelming demand for both Parade and Broadway Week, Telecharge service has been restored and tickets are once again on sale. We apologize for any inconvenience and look forward to welcoming audiences to Broadway this winter and beyond,” said a spokesperson from Telecharge.
In its initial Broadway run, the musical — which scored nine Tony nominations and two wins for best book and best original score, was directed by Harold Prince.
“I am delighted that Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown’s musical will be seen by Broadway audiences again after our brief run last fall. Parade has been a seminal piece of theater for me as an artist since it premiered 25 years ago, and to be collaborating with this incredible group of producers, designers, and artists led by the brilliant Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond is truly a dream come true,” Arden said in a statement. “The story of Leo Frank is more important than ever to re-examine, and it is my hope that audiences are both inspired and activated to reflect on both the past failure and the enduring promise of the complicated tapestry we call America.”
Parade‘s creative team includes choreography by Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant, scenic design by Dane Laffrey, costume design by Susan Hilferty, lighting design by Heather Gilbert, sound design by Jon Weston and projection design by Sven Ortel. Tom Murray serves as the music director, with Tom Watson heading up hair and wig design and Justin Scribner serving as production stage manager. Telsey + Co and Craig Burns, CSA handled casting.
This is the second show from New York City Center to come to Broadway this year, following Into the Woods, which ran from August 2022 through Jan. 8. Both shows are musical revivals, and therefore would seemingly be considered in the same Tony Awards category. New York City Center’s Encores! program stages concert versions of older musicals for runs of about one to two weeks.
This story was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Leading up to the lucrative holiday weeks, the Lea Michele-led Funny Girl broke a box office record at the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway.
The revival brought in just above $2 million across eight shows last week, which also marked a record gross for the production. Michele joined the revival in September, following the departure of Beanie Feldstein, in a move seen to help boost grosses for the then-struggling show.
Since Michele joined the production on Sept. 6, Funny Girl has seen that boost, with the musical bringing in more than $1.6 million a week, and recently closer to $2 million, after more modest returns in the spring and a drop to less than $1 million over the summer.
Mean Girls, which played the August Wilson Theatre from March 2018 until the theatrical shutdown, previously set the house record at the theater in 2018 with a gross of $1.99 million.
The recent box office record was set as Funny Girl played to a capacity of 96 percent and commanded an average ticket price of $213.28, the second highest of all shows for the week. Only The Music Man had a higher average ticket price, at $267.99, which helped the show continue its reign as the highest-grossing show of the week, bringing in $3.25 million.
Ain’t No Mo‘ was another notable standout in the week ended Dec. 18, as the new play saw its grosses triple to reach $499,303 from $164,592 the previous week and play to a capacity of 93 percent. The surge came as creator Jordan E. Cooper waged a campaign to stop the show from closing and received help along the way from Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, Tyler Perry, Shonda Rhimes, Gabrielle Union, Dwyane Wade, Queen Latifah and Sara Ramirez, all of whom bought out performances. The show has now extended through Dec. 23 after initially being told it would close on Dec. 18.
Grosses remain high for the standard top performers on Broadway, with The Lion King bringing in $2.4 million, Wicked bringing in $2.2 million and Hamilton bringing in $2.3 million. Phantom continues to see elevated interest, after extending its closure to April after a run of 35 years.
But many Broadway newcomers continue to struggle, with productions such as Topdog/Underdog, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play starring Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, grossing $257,217 last week and playing to a capacity of 52 percent, which has been the trend for several weeks. Almost Famous, which just announced a Jan. 8 closing, played to a capacity of 68 percent and grossed $703,714, down about $61,000 from the previous week.
These grosses are still a welcome reprieve from last December, when a surge in omicron cases among cast and company members caused the cancellation of dozens of performances across the industry and led to the permanent closure of some shows. Coming up, the weeks around Christmas and New Years Eve often bring in the biggest grosses productions see all season.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.