鈥淭he show is about family, it鈥檚 about relationships, it鈥檚 about swallowing the jagged little pill, dealing with the tough stuff in life, and facing each other in that struggle,鈥� director Diane Paulus says. Paulus refers to Jagged Little Pill, the new Broadway musical she directed at the Broadhurst Theatre based on the eponymous Grammy-winning 1995 Alanis Morissette album.
鈥淥ne of the key songs on that album,鈥� Paulus says, 鈥渋s 鈥榊ou Learn.鈥� That was such a gift, that song. 鈥榊ou live, you learn, you love, you learn, you cry, you learn, you lose, you learn, you bleed, you learn, you scream, you learn.鈥� You go through all that鈥攁nd you learn.鈥�
The show features the songs from the album, which sold more than 33 million copies-selling album, and includes such hits as 鈥淵ou Oughta Know,鈥� 鈥淗and in My Pocket,鈥� 鈥淚ronic,鈥� 鈥淎ll I Really Want,鈥� and 鈥淵ou Learn.鈥� The book by Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno) tells of the Healy family, mother, father, son, and adopted daughter, whose sunny suburban life masks deep inner troubles redolent of America today.
Paulus, 53, won a best-director Tony Award in 2013 for her revival of Pippin and was nominated for Tonys in 2009 and 2012 for directing revivals of Hair and The Gershwins鈥� Porgy and Bess. Her other Broadway directing credits include Waitress and Finding Neverland. She recently directed Eve Ensler鈥檚 In the Body of the World, which played Off-Broadway at MTC. She helmed the Second Stage Off-Broadway production of Invisible Thread. She has directed operas such as Cosi Fan Tutte, Don Giovanni, and Le Nozze Di Figaro at the Chicago Opera Theater. Earlier in her career, she was a co-creator of The Donkey Show, an Off-Broadway disco version of Shakespeare鈥檚 A Midsummer Night鈥檚 Dream. Since 2008, she has been artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Here, Paulus pulls back the curtain on how she became a director, how she works best, and why she was dying to create the stage adaptation of Jagged Little Pill.
Why she became a director:
鈥淚 started out as an actor. I always loved the theatre. But I realized that I loved the theatre because I loved the group experience. I loved working in an environment where you were part of something larger than yourself and that together with other people you could make the impossible possible. And then I realized that as a director I could actually make those experiences happen, whereas as an actor鈥攁s much as I loved being an actor鈥擨 always felt I was not in the driver鈥檚 seat. I would have to wait for the audition or wait to get the job, where as a director I could actually be the catalyst; I could gather people, I could create the conditions for something unexpected to happen, for something creative to be born. For people to surpass what they thought they were capable of. That鈥檚 why I moved from being an actor to being a director. Truly, at its heart, I love that experience, of getting out of your own ego and facilitating something.鈥�
Her directing principles:
鈥淚 believe in asking questions and not knowing the answer. I believe you have to keep pushing yourself to ask the biggest possible questions. I believe in the importance of creating space where everybody feels creative. What do I mean by that? It鈥檚 never about what鈥檚 the right thing to do. It鈥檚 never about what do you want me to do. When an actor says I鈥檒l do whatever you want, it鈥檚 not about what I want. I believe that we鈥檙e all in pursuit of something else, something great, some big question.
鈥淎nd it鈥檚 the job of the director鈥擨鈥檝e identified this mountaintop in the distance that I know we want to climb. My job is to get everybody up the mountain no matter how difficult it is, no matter how scary it is, no matter what falls in our way. That to me is the job of the director, to sense the potential. It鈥檚 not to know the answer, it鈥檚 to sense the potential. And then you have to do everything you can to unlock and create conditions that will give you the most rich and rewarding and creative space to hit that potential.鈥�
In the rehearsal room with an actor:
鈥淓very actor is different. I鈥檝e learned over the years that you have to really tune in to what that actor needs. Some actors are super intellectual, and they want to understand things. Other actors need to be pushed, need to be challenged. For me, it鈥檚 like I鈥檓 a coach, and I鈥檓 trying to analyze what I need to do to get that actor to a place they鈥檝e never been. That鈥檚 my mission 鈥� how do I get the most extraordinary performance out of this person?鈥�
A mistake she made that she learned from:
鈥淲hen I was a graduate student at Columbia University, I was doing a production of King Lear for my thesis. I remember it wasn鈥檛 a very good production. There were the stormy scenes on the heath, and we had the sound effect of thunder, and my stage manager was a fellow graduate student, and he was in the control booth, and I remember feeling like the only way to fix the show was more thunder, more thunder. I think I was madly gesticulating outside the control booth in the middle of the show. And that is just the wrong thing to do. I learned my lesson then. I could not do any good in the moment there, born of any kind of passion, that might be understandable. That was not the right way to go about it. Everybody has a process.
鈥淚鈥檝e learned that when the show鈥檚 running it鈥檚 in other people鈥檚 hands. I watch, and I鈥檓 there if I鈥檓 needed. But a show has to grow on its own. I鈥檝e also learned that. You have to see things happen that maybe you know are not right or need to be fixed but you have to find the right time to fix them.鈥�
Some thoughts about Jagged Little Pill:
鈥淚t was the album, and everything that Alanis Morissette stood for when that album came out in the 1990s, that made me want to direct this musical. It was my memory of the experience of that album back in the 鈥�90s that made me think, in 30 seconds, I wanted to be on this project and devote whatever it took to see this happen. I had an immediate reaction to wanting to live inside that music and devote what I knew would be several years of my life to it.
鈥淎nd, of course, it became so much more than that when I got to actually meet her and work with her, and listen to the music again, now, 25 years later. It quickly grew to such a deeper understanding of that music than I remembered. The first thing I did when I came home after the project was brought to me was to listen to the music again, and I was overwhelmed by the range of emotion in the songs.
鈥淓verybody thinks of Alanis Morissette and thinks of 鈥榊ou Oughta Know,鈥� her unleashed rage, which certainly she channeled, but she also touches so many other vulnerable feelings and so much interest in feeling and dealing with trauma. It鈥檚 been a very intense journey of growing and achieving a much deeper appreciation of what that music was and what it still means today.
鈥淎lanis just broke the mold in so many ways. She was this young woman who was unafraid to express herself. She did it not only through her songwriting, and her incredible lyrics, but also the way she performed. Everybody has an impression of not only listening to the music but experiencing her. I think part of my interest in working on this was wanting to tap into that energy. Immediately, I started thinking about the Greek theatre. I just felt there was something about Alanis that was Dionysian. It was just explosive, it was epic, it was visceral, and it made me think that whatever show I was going to make, not knowing anything about what I was going to do yet, this was going to be an epic piece of theatre, and this was going to break the fourth wall, and this was going to be a ritual in the theatre.
鈥淭he one thing that came with the project was the fact that Alanis did not want it to be a biopic. She didn鈥檛 want this musical to tell her story, her personal biography. That was it. I was happy to move forward knowing that that was her request, but what it meant was you have to find a writer, a person who鈥檚 going to help give these songs an organic, original story. I just feel we found the best possible person in Diablo Cody. Who also, like me, was obsessed with the album and wanting to live inside it and make something out of it.
鈥淭he process became one of listening over and over to the songs and understanding what were the themes, what were the characters that were emerging organically from the songs, discussing that among ourselves鈥擳om Kitt, our musical arranger, and Diablo and Alanis鈥攁nd then ultimately Diablo coming forward with this story about a family. She zoomed in on this one family and the kind of picture-perfect world they鈥檙e upholding in how they present themselves on the outside, when on the inside there鈥檚 a lot of pain, suffering, a lot of trauma, a lot of tension鈥攚hich is what we鈥檙e all feeling. That鈥檚 probably closer to real life than any happy-ever-after family. That felt correct, to go into that kind of storytelling.
鈥淪o the show is about one family and their dynamics, and the [relationship] between a mother and a daughter, which I also thought was really smart and appropriate, because Alanis and Diablo and Tom Kitt and myself, we鈥檙e all parents. Dealing with all the challenges.
鈥淭here鈥檚 that mother character, the core of it, and yet, you couldn鈥檛 do an Alanis Morissette musical of Jagged Little Pill without having that teenage energy in it. Diablo very smartly brought this daughter as the other major dynamic in the show鈥攖he character of Frankie, a trans-racial adoptee. So you have this intergenerational thing going on鈥攕omeone who鈥檚 a mature person living in the world, and a young person, who鈥檚 experiencing the world in a different way. Diablo said to me early on that she always felt that the mother represented the America of the past and Frankie represented America now and in the future. And that interested me because I feel we鈥檙e living that tension right now in the country. That change is real, it鈥檚 happening, and it鈥檚 terrifying. And how do you experience it as a society, or how do you experience it inside one鈥檚 family? This show is about facing each other and committing to the next steps.鈥�
The future:
鈥淚 did a production [Off-Broadway] about Gloria Steinem called Gloria: A Life, and I鈥檓 bringing that to American Repertory Theatre. I go into rehearsal right after the New Year. [Performances begin January 24.] And then I鈥檓 doing a revival of 1776, the musical, in May at A.R.T. That鈥檚 my next big musical project. It鈥檚 going from A.R.T. on a short tour, to the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, and then to various cities around the country, and then we鈥檒l be at the Roundabout in [April] 2021.鈥�
