Sara Bareilles relates to ‘Little Voice,’ her new show about a young singer trying to make it in New York
After launching the musical “Waitress” on Broadway, Sara Bareilles didn’t plan to make a TV show. But then filmmaker J.J. Abrams came calling.
That’s what led to “Little Voice,” the romantic drama series out Friday on Apple TV+ that counts both Abrams and Bareilles as executive producers, and features the singer’s music.
Bareilles was a huge fan of “Felicity,” the Keri Russell university-set TV series that Abrams co-created. And Abrams was a big admirer of “Waitress,” based on the 2007 movie that also happened to star Russell.
“Apparently I have a Keri Russell thing,” Bareilles joked to the Daily News.
Abrams didn’t have a plan, but he wanted more of what Bareilles and co-writer Jessie Nelson did with their 2016 Broadway show about a waitress in an abusive marriage.
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“I started thinking about, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting to see that same sort of tone [as ‘Felicity'], but what if Felicity was a songwriter?’ The idea of a young woman, a young person, finding their voice as an artist and as a person,” Bareilles said.
That eventually became “Little Voice,” a sweet musical show about Bess King, a wannabe singer struggling through her early 20s in New York. Two love interests — Ethan (Sean Teale) and Samuel (Colton Ryan) — and her best friend Prisha (Shalini Bathina) try to help, while her dad (Chuck Cooper) and autistic brother (Kevin Valdez) get in her way without trying.
“The beauty about this show is that it has a sense of normalcy or relatability,” Brittany O’Grady, the “Star” alum who plays Bess, told The News. “The stakes internally were so high for the character and people could feel that without the world ending or without these extremes of highs and lows.”
For Bess,the stakes revolve around music, where she faces debilitating stage fright after being laughed off during her last attempt; her brother, with an obsession-like love of musical theater; and her father, an alcoholic who makes a living singing in subway stations. Would-be beau Samuel woos her with his own music, while love-interest Ethan makes movies.
“He brings his view of the world in a cinematic form,” said Teale, the British actor who plays the filmmaker. “He’s a keen observer and he’s keenly intelligent based on that. From his hardships, he learned to see the world in a lovelier way.”
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“Bess is positive about the world, but it’s also a really hard world for her to live in. I think Ethan is capable of showing her that that life is still worth living and that there are joys within that.”
Bareilles, 40, wrote all of the songs for the show. Some are old demos that never made it onto her albums, including the theme song, while others were written just for “Little Voice.” The music, she said, let her go back to the early part of her career, when she was struggling just like Bess.
“You’re in your early 20s and people are telling you you’re an adult but you don’t really feel it,” she said. “You’re doing whatever you can to make ends meet and get on your own two feet for the first time. That’s where we find Bess, in the first taste of independence. What does that look like for a young artist?”
Bareilles referred to herself and her “Waitress” writing partner Nelson — who’s credited as a creator on “Little Voice” — as “hope-aholics.”
“We really believe in the goodness of people and we want to tell stories about good people who make mistakes, but their essence remains intact,” she said. “It’s not a show with a tone of cynicism or disbelief in the fundamental good nature of humanity. Even in the midst of the psychotic chaos we stare at in the news all day, I really believe in the fundamental goodness of humanity.”
For Ryan, who plays Samuel, “Little Voice” is about “young people trying to not just find their voice but also in the midst of trying to pay their rent.”
In a TV landscape filled with shows about the afterlife, Nazi hunters and a governmental agency tasked to put boots on the moon, “Little Voice” is simply the story of a girl trying to find her way.
“It feels pure of heart,” Ryan said, “because it is pure of reality.”
