Critically-acclaimed Broadway musical ‘Jagged Little Pill’ - based on Alanis Morrissette’s debut album - is bringing its intimate portrayal of the cracks that lay beneath every family’s façade to Melbourne in January.
In the perfectly imperfect American family, mother Mary Jane is a mother struggling with addiction and mental health, distancing herself from her marriage and children. She has a lovely home an accomplished husband, two healthy children and she out bikes them all at soulcycle.
She also has a drug addiction, unprocessed sexual trauma from college, a communication gap with her daughter, unhealthy boundaries with her son, and a marriage hanging by a thread. As the matriarch MJ brings some of the most shocking and heartbreaking moments to the stage, all while making you believe she has it completely together.
The critically acclaimed Tony and Grammy award winning musical is coming to Melbourne’s Comedy Theatre, starring an ensemble cast featuting multi-award winner Natalie Bassingthwaighte, Tim Draxl, Maggie McKenna, Liam Head, and Emily Nkomo in her musical theatre debut.
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Inspired by the most successful debut album of all time, Jagged Little Pill enraptures through Morrisette’s universal hits ‘You Oughta Know’, ‘Head Over Feet’ and ‘Hand In My Pocket’ from her five-time Grammy Award winning album, with a gripping original story written by Academy Award-winner Diablo Cody (Juno, Tully).
“We are thrilled to welcome this incredible Australian company to the Jagged Little Pill family, led by the remarkable Natalie and Maggie,” Tony Award winning director Diane Paulus said.
“It was so special to have members of the Australian cast and creative team working with us on the ground in New York to begin our rehearsal process. I can’t wait for Australian audiences – the first beyond Broadway – to experience Alanis Morrisette’s electrifying music in this story about family and healing.”
“I was introduced to Alanis Morrisette and Jagged Little Pill when I was a teenager through my older brother, and it truly was the album that took me from my jazz and musical theatre collection into the world of meaningfully written pop music,” Draxl (who plays Steve Healy) added.
“It was my road trip album of choice back then and now I am excited to be bringing those same songs to life in this important contemporary story with Nat Bass as my co-star and the rest of this incredible cast.”
Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill is the bestselling debut album in history, with sales reaching 33 million copies worldwide. 25 years after its release, Jagged Little Pill continues to be one of the top 20 best-selling albums of all time.
The contemporary relevance of Paulus’ production was recognised with the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theatre Album and a whopping 15 Tony Award nominations, winning Best Book of a Musical for Diablo Cody and Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Lauren Patten.
Jagged Little Pill opens on 2 January, 2022. You can follow Jagged Little Pill on Instagram here, or join the conversation using the hashtag #JaggedMusicalAU.
Book tickets at jaggedmusical.com
