Sara Bareilles to team up with Sarah Ruhl for new musical

Tony and Olivier Award nominee Sara Bareilles has officially signed on to write another musical.

Bareilles, who wrote the music and lyrics for Waitress, starred as Jenna on both Broadway and West End stages and also contributed to The SpongeBob Musical score, will team up with playwright Sarah Ruhl for a new musical adaptation of Meg Wolitzer’s novel, The Interestings.

Published in 2013, the story follows six artistic friends, who originally met as teenagers at a summer camp in the 1970s. Living in New York City at the age of 30, they begin to wonder if their respective lives turned out to be as fascinating as they once hoped.

Bareilles commented: “I wrote the first song for The Interestings before I even finished the book. To borrow a quote from one of our main characters: ‘I have fallen in love…with a group of people’. Meg Wolitzer’s extraordinary creation, The Interestings, was such an immediate and fascinating world of humanity and ache and adolescence and regret. I found so many moments that felt like singing. Making this musical has been a conjuring, a deep listening to the themes of the beautiful novel and a tremendously energising creative conversation with the wild wisdom and endless talent of Sarah Ruhl as my collaborator, bringing these new friends to life in a new way. I am so thrilled to be a part of this wonderful team.”

Ruhl added: “I am so thrilled to be adapting this novel, a hymn to yearning and being alive, with the goddess-like fount of creativity Sara Bareilles. Meg’s brilliant book speaks to some of the biggest questions: How do we become? How do we know when our lives are of value; how do we know when we have ‘enough’? How do complicated friendships endure? The setting of an arts camp is familiar to me as a besotted former camper and sings with nostalgia. I can’t wait to share this tale of youth and growth with an audience.”

Ruhl is a Tony Award nominee and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, whose most notable plays include In the Next Room, Eurydice, The Clean House and Orlando.

Produced by Matt Ross, a timeline, casting and additional creative team members for the new musical are still to be announced.

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