Anyone who has been listening to top hits radio since the mid-2000s is likely to recognize the name Sara Bareilles. The actor, singer-songwriter, and film composer released her debut album Careful Confessions in 2004, followed by her second album Little Voice in 2007 which catapulted her to fame. Since the beginning of her music career, Bareilles has sold over 1 million albums and over 9 million singles in the United States; she has also been nominated for eight Grammy Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and two Tony Awards.
Bareilles is a multi-faceted creative. On top of her pop career, she has been involved in musical theater since high school, where she joined choir and played Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors. Her most notable roles have been Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar and her current role on the show Girls5eva. Not only did she make contributions to the SpongeBob SquarePants musical, but she has also written the music and lyrics for the show Waitress, which ran on Broadway for four years.
On her creative process, Bareilles says that “it has always been a very organic process, sometimes something as simple as sitting down at the piano and placing my hands at random and finding the seed of an idea” (Billboard). This type of process is intrinsically motivated; Bareilles has been passionate about music and performance since she was young, driven by her own love for art. With her Broadway work, however, she notes, “my process has been more assignment-based, which I used to feel was a bit of a contamination of the purity and expression for the sake of expression, but I’ve actually found writing for an assignment has unlocked some interesting stuff for me personally to explore ideas and stay with them.” Finding a new professional side of her creativity, Bareilles has switched from internal to external motivation, pushed by the deadlines of the musical theater world and rediscovering creativity within those bounds.
As an actor, Bareilles’s performance as Mary Magdalene alongside other Big-C creatives such as John Legend and Alice Cooper, made headlines. Bareilles drew from her own experience with Catholicism. She grew up in the Catholic church, and although she no longer identifies with one doctrine, she considers herself religious (New York Times). It’s interesting to consider the role that personal identity plays in a creative’s work. Would Bareilles have been able to perform Mary so well had she not grown up religious? Especially because she worked with a team of women, how imperative was Bareilles’s identity as a woman to her success with Waitress? These types of questions are important to consider when thinking about the creative process and the ability to become a Big-C creative.
Citations:
Billboard: https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/sara-bareilles-songwriters-hall-of-fame-interview-8459611/
New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/arts/john-legend-and-the-jesus-christ-superstar-cast-on-faith-and-musicals.html
This is an awesome post! I have always loved her music and its cool getting to hear about her creative process. I still think its amazing that "love song", one of her most famous songs, is literally her saying she is not going to make music thats not genuine and not her own just because her label said so. She's so awesome and its great getting to see her again and get the reminder to go back and listen to her music!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love Sara Bareilles, and Waitress is, in my opinion, one of the few adaptations of a film into a musical that truly expands on its source material and results in an even more impressive work (the other being the Legally Blonde musical adaptation). As you mentioned, her multifaceted career in pop and musical theater is so impressive, and I don't think she gets enough credit for all that she has accomplished.
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