How Jagged Little Pill Helped Kathryn Gallagher Find Her Voice — And Use It

Kathryn Gallagher sweeps her fears under the rug where they belong. That's not to mention she's fully fearless, just that she saves those fears for a cloudier day. Although now, she's content to sit and wax poetic over her preference subject: Grey's Anatomy. "What a way to leave a show," she says, eyes shining as she recalls Christina Yang's exit from the long-running hospital drama. "He may be dreamy, although he's not the sun you are," the singer-songwriter recites correctly. "It's literally a poster in my dressing room," she adds. "I was going through a terrible breakup and all of my companions kept sending me that meme. So right now I look art it each day Or, roughly eight times a week.


Gallagher is now starring in Jagged Little Pill, an explosive new Broadway show inspired by the music of Alanis Morissette and written by Diablo Cody. She plays Bella Fox, a role she's helped developed from the beginning — from the pleading 2013 email she wrote when the stage musical was announced to the initial Boston lab rehearsals of the show in 2017. Bella evolved from an ensemble part to a central character in the second act, whose sexual assault ignites a suburban community. It's a weak place for Gallagher to go night right after night, however it's helped the songwriter find her own voice. Once she's not watching Grey's in her dressing room, she's writing her own music — oftentimes between scenes.


In this conversation with MTV News, Gallagher opens up about her "crazy, tumultuous year," her own connection to Alanis, finding her own catharsis in Bella's story, and how theater kids are not-so-secretly the cool kids.


MTV News: How would you describe your own personalized relationship to Alanis Morissette's music? 


Kathryn Gallagher: I have been listening to her music since I was a little bit girl. My mom's been playing her music in the residence since I can remember. While I got the job, I already knew all of the words. It was the simplistic job I've ever had. It's truly dream come true for me.


MTV News: What was the initial song that resonated with you?


Gallagher: the opening song I ever loved was "Hand In My Pocket" because I would ask my mom to play "the cigarette song." I don't know if that's beautiful for a five-year-old or disturbing. Nevertheless as I grew older, I think "Forgiven" was a really big one for me. My main go to all time Alanis song is "Hands Tidy It's just so good — so, so good. Nevertheless I find a different song I love every time.


MTV News: Watching the show made me realize Under Rug Swept is my preferred Alanis era.


Gallagher: The brain that it takes to prepare that one, Under Rug Swept. It's like, "OK, you are a genius, bye." She's amazing.


MTV News: You heard about the show in 2013 and knew you had to be piece of it. How did you manifest it? Because it takes a lot of confidence to go immediately after what you want. 


Gallagher: The original script was a fully different show. There wasn't a part for me initially. Yet they had a general ensemble call for the lab [in Boston]. And [my reps] were like, "You can do this in the event you want." So I went in, and then they ended up calling me back for this featured ensemble role, Bella. She popped in and out of the ensemble, which meant I was changing my clothes every other number and dancing in all the scene numbers and pushing the panels between sets. So it was a very different role than I have right now, yet it grew in this really pretty way. I have no idea how I manifested it. I think I just got lucky. Some days it's just right place, right time, right gig.


MTV News: How did Bella become the character that she is currently, from that first lab in Boston to Broadway?


Gallagher: No one really anticipated the role getting the answer that it did. There was such a hunger to hear this story told on a big platform. The world was growing at the same time that this role was growing; we were in the room working on the show whenever Me Also broke, as soon as that became a saying. We finished the show in Cambridge, plus a month later, Dr. Christine Ford gave her testimony. And thus there was a urgency, like, "We need to do [the] show right now And I had a large assortment of people writing to me or telling me at the stage door, even in Boston, that seeing this on a stage freed them of this shame that was not theirs to feel, from an experience like Bella has, in their own life. So the world informed us that there was a place for this story to be told and to dive in deeper.


MTV News: Teing with something from the very starting is that these productions are a living, breathing thing. So there is room for teamwork and to try different things. What was that experience like to prepare design a character?


Gallagher: I had only done one Broadway show before. I did the revival of Spring Awakening. However this was my first time originating a role. And I've done workshops and the 29-hour readings from 79 different musicals. And thus I routinely knew what questions I like to ask it and whatnot. Although having the possibility to live indoor this role for two-and-a-half years, I got to studies it. I got to live it. I got to experience it through. And I got to grow with it as a person.


MTV News: Has Bella changed you as a performer? 


Gallagher: Hell yeah.


MTV News: How so?


Gallagher: Number one, doing eight shows a week is bootcamp. It's just like doing that same thing each day. Finding new things routinely showing up and bringing your A game is just going to give you a certain level of commitment and drive that you wouldn't necessarily have. It's a constant challenge. And Bella, in particular, has changed me as a person just in the way that she is brave as hell. And she's fearless. And she's taught me that as soon as you tell your truth, you find your people and that there will constantly be people that will attempt to delegitimize your story and attempt to poke holes in your truth — that forces you to feel fucking crazy, and only you are the keeper of your story. And only you are the one that carries it with you. So find those people that make you feel that you're smart and perfect and worth it. There really are usually going to be people that are willing to hear you and are willing to stand with you.


MTV News: That seems like a really invaluable lessons to learn as a singer-songwriter too. Do you feel like that's a more susceptible experience for you? 


Gallagher: Bella is hard in an other way every night. I find it very interesting playing her because this hasn't been an easy year for me. It's been a crazy, tumultuous year. I've learned a lot. I've pushed every boundary I've possibly known. And While I was beginning rehearsals, I was in a really emotionally intense time in my life that was feeding the role and vice versa. So being able to bring those characteristic and the things that I learned from that situation into Bella, into this character that is routinely going to a super intense place along with a dark place, is a susceptible place to go every night. And I feel very lucky that I get to be the person that tells a story that has been healing for so several people. It's been healing for me. But when I'm writing my own music, that's really susceptible also. You certainly write songs any time while you have to hear them. So I have been doing all this writing while I've Been doing this show, and it's all feeding each other and I'm just lucky that I get outlets for it. You know, the show is cathartic. The writing is cathartic. It's been a time of excellent catharsis in my life, I would say.


MTV News: You'll look back on this period of your writing and know exactly where you were in life.


Gallagher: I was writing the other day, and I was like, "Forgive the show in the background. That's just Elizabeth Stanley, like belting it out." I have my old travel guitar in my dressing room and I'll just begin writing between scenes. You just got to strike while the iron is hot, you know?


MTV News: That's incredible.


Gallagher: Once it's been a shit year and also you could look back and be, like, "Nah, I'm doing cool shit right now. This is excellent I feel really grateful. Sometimes some bad shit has to happen for you to look back and be like, "I'm here right now, and that's really awesome."


MTV News: Jagged Little Pill is a heavy show however it also has a lot of energy. It's propulsive. And it's coming at a time once young folks are finding theater again. 


Gallagher: Broadway is cool again! All of us grew up as total theater geeks, and we're weirdos. I hope my castmates aren't reading this, like, "Speak for yourself, Gallagher." Although I firmly believe that any time whenever you grow up as a theater geek, you're probably on the outskirts of the cool kids. There's something that inspires such individualism and also a true sense of self at a young age as soon as you know that the shit you like isn't necessarily cool. You're just like, although this is who I am and this is what I like and, yeah, I know all of the words to every Sondheim show, and that's just where I'm at right now."


MTV News: I think you and your companions, Beanie [Feldstein] and Ben [Platt], are proving that theater kids are cool, or will one day become cool.  


Gallagher: I'm really delighted of our sort from high school because we're just a bunch of theater geeks that like to have slumber parties and like dancing to Carly Rae Jepsen, and each person is sort of crushing it now. Like Beanie and Ben were both nominated [at the Golden Globes] — that's so cool.


MTV News: Certainly, you pour a lot of yourself into Bella, you pour a lot of yourself into your music. Yet once do you feel like most of you? 


Gallagher: As soon as I'm watching Grey's Anatomy. I don't know. They're all different characteristic. Bella is so deeply ingrained in me as a person right now that she forever will be piece of me. Nevertheless writing songs has what I have been doing since I was 11 and it's certainly the thing I'm most studied in. It's how I express myself. Any time I'm sad, I write. Whenever I'm happy, I write. It's habitually what I'm returning to.


MTV News: And Grey's Anatomy. 


Gallagher: Zoning the fuck out and watching Grey's Anatomy for four hours is self-care. I don't care what anyone says. I think it's key to just constantly check in with yourself, like, what do I need right now? Do I need to go take a dance class, or do I need to sit on my ass and let Meredith Grey and Christina Yang tell me their gospel?