"Jagged Little Pill," a musical written by Academy Award-winning Benet Academy graduate, Diablo Cody, opened last month at the James M. Nederlander Theatre in the Chicago Loop.
The musical, which earned Cody a Tony Award in 2020, is set to Alanis Morrisette's 1995 album of the same name.
"My first thought was I can't possibly say no to this because I have been a fan of Alanis Morissette's since I was a teenager in the 90's - and her music has just been so meaningful to me in my life," Cody told ABC 7 Chicago.
The musical premiered on May 5, 2018 at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass. It made its Broadway debut at the Broadhurst Theater on December 5, 2019, and closed on December 17, 2021 due to COVID-19.
The show received 15 nominations and two awards at the 74th Tony Awards, and won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
Cody was also in the news recently for a special live script reading in Los Angeles of her horror comedy "Jennifer's Body," which was released in 2009. Cody said before the performance kicked off that she wrote the script in the wake of her unexpected success from "Juno," and she emphasized her gratitude for fans who appreciate her work.
“It’s difficult for me to not just burst into heaving sobs honestly right now because I’m so grateful for the appreciation. Truly, nothing makes me happier than when a person approaches me and tells me that they love this movie," Cody told Indie Wire. "At the time, I felt like I was undergoing a kind of scary personal transformation because I had written ‘Juno’ and it had come out and it had been a success, which was completely unexpected."
Cody wrote the screenplay for "Juno," a teen pregnancy comedy that came out in 2007. She won the Oscar for the best original screenplay at the 2008 Academy Awards, and her film was also nominated for Best Picture.
Cody went on to write other popular screenplays, including for "Tully," which was nominated in 2018 for a best original screenplay prize at the International Online Cinema Awards, and "Young Adult," which was nominated for a best original screenplay award by the Writers Guild of America, according to IMDb.
Cody said she drew much of her writing inspiration from her own life. When she was writing "Tully," which focuses on motherhood, Cody had just had her third son, and she said she was feeling "exhausted and overwhelmed," Awards Daily reported. She said she was intimidated by the prospect of writing a "big studio movie," since she usually wrote for the "Indie spec script world."
"I honestly didn’t have the energy to deliver it. I was thinking I needed help. I felt like my younger self could handle it, but there I was in my late thirties with three kids, completely under water. That was where the idea of Tully was born," Cody said. "What if we could channel all the energy that we once had into our present-day lives, wouldn’t that be incredible? It was basically a fantasy for me."
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