Jodi Picoult and Timothy Allen McDonald's BREATHE Is Now Available for Licensing

Theatrical licensor Music Theatre International (MTI) has announced that Breathe is now available for licensing.

Written as the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded, Breathe follows five pairs of characters grappling with the virus’s impact on their lives, families, relationships, society, and health. Ranging from lighthearted to heartbreaking, unbelievable and all-too-real, these vignettes tackle everything from parenting in Covid, to Black Lives Matter protests, to saying goodbye to a spouse via Zoom.

Conceived and written by New York Times best-selling novelist and book writer Jodi Picoult (Between the Lines) and playwright Timothy Allen McDonald (Between the Lines, James and The Giant Peach, The Big One-Oh!), Breathe consists of five interlocking suites, each featuring a score from different songwriting duos: Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich (Ever After, Junie B. Jones the Musical), Rob Rokicki (The Lightning Thief) and Rebecca Murillo (Not Quite Extinct), Daniel Mertzlufft and Kate Leonard (Dot & the Kangaroo JR., Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical), Tony Award-winner Doug Besterman (Little Did I Know) and Sharon Vaughn (Hats!), and Jonathan Larson Grant finalists Douglas Lyons and Ethan Pakchar (Five Points).

A Breathe cast recording features Tony Award-winners Kelli O’Hara and Brian Stokes Mitchell, Patti Murin, Colin Donnell, Denée Benton, Rubén J. Carbajal, Matt Doyle, Max Clayton, Daniel Yearwood, T. Oliver Reid and Josh Davis.

In addition to the cast album, a fantastic recording of the full show with the aforementioned star-studded performers is available on Audible.  The Audible recording features this powerfully touching production that shines a glimmering light on the reality of adjusting to a virtual world.

“Four years ago to the day, our world stopped,” says Drew Cohen, President and CEO of Music Theatre International. “The Covid-19 pandemic was an incredibly challenging time, and these artists, needing to channel their creative energy into something positive, developed a musical about what the entire world was experiencing. The individual vignettes help give voice the feelings of grief and loss, but also to hope and inspiration that is emblematic of the human spirit.”

By turns funny and heartbreaking, unbelievable and all-too-real, Breathe is an unprecedented musical chronicling an unprecedented time.

Jodi Picoult remarked, “On March 20, 2020, after Tim had recovered from Covid-19, we began writing Breathe.  We were driven by the need to chronicle the pandemic in real time, knowing that we needed to memorialize the lives lost and irrevocably changed.  Because the theater industry had shut down, we were determined to collaborate with five different songwriting teams, directors, music directors, and sets of actors, hoping to employ as many colleagues as we could we workshopped, rehearsed, and recorded our musical in an empty theater …all while sheltering in place and following the strictest CDC safety guidelines.  When the Library of Congress asked to include Breathe in its Covid-19 Performing Arts Response Collection, we were honored and humbled to be recognized for a work that preserved that terrifying, terrible moment — and showed how we might begin to grow from its ashes.  After all, isn’t that what art is for?" 

Licensing and additional information can be found here. International restrictions may apply.

About Music Theatre International

Music Theatre International (MTI) is one of the world's leading theatrical licensing agencies, granting theatres from around the world the rights to perform the greatest selection of musicals from Broadway and beyond. Founded in 1952 by composer Frank Loesser and orchestrator Don Walker, MTI is a driving force in advancing musical theatre as a vibrant and engaging art form.

MTI works directly with the composers, lyricists and book writers of these musicals to provide official scripts, musical materials and dynamic theatrical resources to over 100,000 professional, community and school theatres in the US and in over 150 countries worldwide.

MTI is particularly dedicated to educational theatre and has created special collections to meet the needs of various types of performers and audiences. MTI’s Broadway Junior® shows are 30- and 60-minute musicals for performance by elementary and middle school-aged performers, while MTI’s School Editions are musicals annotated for performance by high school students.

MTI maintains its global headquarters in New York City (mtishows.com), with additional offices in London (MTI Europe:  mtishows.co.uk, mtishows.eu), and Melbourne (MTI Australasia:  mtishows.com.au).