Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill musical is coming

Canadian singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette. PHOTO: WILLIAMS & HIRAKAWA

New York (NYTimes, WP, AFP) - Alanis Morissette's got one hand in her pocket, and the other one is writing a stage musical.

Yes, really: The singer-songwriter has made a jukebox musical based on her Grammy-winning 1990s album Jagged Little Pill. The show has been in the works since 2013 and will have its premiere in May 2018 as part of the coming season at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

It will turn the album's music into a story about "a modern and multi-generational family and their complex dynamics, touching on issues of gender identity and race", producers said in a statement.

Diane Paulus, the Tony-winning director (Pippin) who is the artistic director of the theatre, will stage the adaptation of Jagged Little Pill, which she called "one of the most important albums of the last 30 years". "It had so much meaning in its time," she said. She hailed Morissette as a female artist who spoke out "with courage and power and vulnerability". Diablo Cody, the witty writer of the movies Juno (2007) and Ricki And The Flash (2015), will write the script of the musical.

Jagged Little Pill, which was a formative album for many teenagers and cathartic for adults at the time, included hits like You Oughta Know, Ironic and Hand In My Pocket. Paulus said she and the writers found that the album still has "deep meaning" today.

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