‘I am so glad that I mentioned sure’ : NPR

When singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles joined a small revival of Into the Woods in 2022, she anticipated it to be a fast dedication. A part of the New York Metropolis Middle’s Encores! sequence, the present was a stripped-down model of the musical with a restricted run.

However the manufacturing, which reimagines acquainted fairy tales, was so well-received, it went on to Broadway — and Bareilles needed to determine whether or not to proceed in her function of the Baker’s Spouse, or to maneuver ahead with the opposite tasks she had deliberate for the 12 months. She opted for Broadway.

“What I really like about theater is that each reinvention is an opportunity to seek out one thing new, and the brand new solid introduced new sorts of interpretations and coronary heart to the expertise,” she says. “And I am so glad that I mentioned sure.”

In February, the Broadway solid recording of Into the Woods received the Grammy for finest musical theater album. Extra just lately, the present obtained six Tony nominations, together with a nod to Bareilles for finest lead actress in a musical.

Past the accolades, Bareilles says the Broadway revival holds particular significance as the primary Stephen Sondheim manufacturing that is been mounted for the reason that legendary composer and lyricist’s dying in 2021.

“There was … this different layer of reverence, I feel, that went into the making of the present, as a result of it was very tender to make one thing with out [Sondheim],” she says.

Bareilles isn’t any stranger to Broadway; about 10 years in the past, she signed on to jot down the songs for Waitress, a musical adaptation of the 2007 impartial movie. Although she was already an skilled songwriter — her 2007 hit “Love Track” was nominated for a Grammy — Bareilles remembers being initially daunted by the duty.

“I used to be just a little bit depressing for the primary two years,” Bareilles says. “After which I fell madly, deeply devotionally in love. [Waitress] is the the love of my inventive life. It is modified all the pieces about me, all the pieces about my life, my relationships, my profession.”

Bareilles made her Broadway debut in 2017, enjoying the lead in Waitress. In 2021, she started starring in Girls5Eva, a TV comedy a couple of one-hit-wonder lady pop group from the Nineteen Nineties attempting for a second probability.

Interview Highlights

On what makes Sondheim tough to sing

[Into the Woods] was my first Sondheim present, and the present itself could be very quick paced. The scenes are quick. There’s loads of repetition. It is a maze. It is this very intricate braiding collectively of fairy story characters. …

The grand intervals are insane. It is like pointillism in vocal efficiency. It is everywhere and it is quick phrases and actually dense lyrics which have loads of info. You actually need to be in your phrases. For me, it was looking for a stability between form of just like the pop stylings of how I usually sing and one thing that leans just a little extra legit and just a little extra musical theater simply to make it possible for readability was actually on the forefront. It was actually vital to me to make it possible for each phrase of this actually unimaginable rating was tremendous crystal clear.

On the character of the Baker’s Spouse

I gave her a reputation. That was the very first thing I did. I named her Rebecca. I like characters that really feel form of torn between two issues as a result of I feel I all the time relate to that sense of, sure, my life is extraordinary, and I’m wondering about different issues, too. I feel that it is only a very human situation to be questioning who you might be and the place you might be and why you are there.

I really like her form of fascination with the prince. I feel it is form of scrumptious and foolish and really childlike. She’s acquired a factor for royalty. She’s like the one who buys the ceramic plates of the royal household. She simply loves him … however she does not actually know why. It is like an unexamined a part of her psyche. After which she will get this opportunity encounter and it is that lovely factor the place she explores and she or he makes a mistake. She screws up. It is a messy state of affairs and she or he nonetheless has to reconcile with that. So I really like that she’s not tied up in just a little bow in any respect.

On the distinction between singing a music as a personality versus singing as herself

I feel the largest change is one thing I realized from doing Waitress — I wrote the entire music for that present. So going into the present, I feel my strategy initially had been because the songwriter and I needed to study [that] a personality does not know what the tip of the music is but. A personality’s in it, second, to second, to second. So each thought is a brand new concept and coming from someplace and connected to the thought that had come earlier than.

It is what I really like about appearing truly, is it is an actual meditation and staying current the place you might be simply on this second proper now. … It is simply that you simply’re having to look at somebody in actual time go from A to B to C. And as a songwriter, the settlement with the viewers is that everyone knows I wrote it. Everyone knows I do know what’s coming subsequent. It has been ready. However as an actor, you need to form of disappear into the journey and let your character’s discoveries be middle stage.

On her preliminary resistance to taking medicine for her anxiousness

I used to be scared that I might get form of pulled farther away from myself. My melancholy is a giant a part of my motivation as a author, seeing disappointment and eager to translate and articulate it, or observing a tenderness in some state of affairs or in an individual. I used to be afraid that [by] being on medicine, that one thing would get subdued, or one thing would get suppressed, or my emotions would simply really feel muted or like there was a blanket over them.

I had all these concepts about what it will really feel prefer to be on medicine with out having tried it. … I acquired fortunate. It was my first strive that I truly began to really feel higher. And that isn’t the trail for lots of people. And I do know it may be a extremely irritating and scary time, however … it was mythology to consider that that disappointment was in some way my supply materials. It is part of it, however when the disappointment begins to turn out to be the North Star or, like, the organizing precept, that is out of stability. That is not telling the reality. That is truly telling a lie. …

I by no means wished to be on medicine. … After which I actually acquired to, like, the underside of the effectively and could not discover out after the pandemic. I feel the magnitude of the grief and the magnitude of the loss and worry and political discord and disappointment and the way so many issues had been dealt with simply on a big scale after which simply interpersonally, I could not pull up. … [Medication] has been a sport changer for me. When it comes to high quality of life and capability to carry uncomfortable emotions, it is a significantly better option to stroll via the world.

On satirizing the music business in Girls5eva and enjoying a popstar

I did not have the arrogance then, and I virtually form of haven’t got the arrogance now. Like, we had a second on set … we had been taking nonetheless photographs that had been going to go up on a poster of any person’s bed room. And I acquired put on this skimpy black stage put on, like a flashy little black gown, [and] I used to be in tears. I’ve had unimaginable physique dysmorphia my entire life, partially from being teased as a child and being advised I used to be fats and being advised I used to be ugly. And all that stuff nonetheless very a lot lives in my physique and in my thoughts.

And in a means, this present is giving me a possibility to possibly heal a few of that, however I nonetheless get overwhelmed with that. … I get to relive that and form of attempt to heal just a little little bit of that in myself, the place we get to put on ridiculous issues. And sure, I would cry on set generally. However truthfully, in case you knew the 4 of us, we’re all the time crying and it is essentially the most scrumptious, wonderful solid of girls. We’re very, very shut mates at this level.

Seth Kelley and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey tailored it for the net.