Interview: Heidi Blickenstaff of JAGGED LITTLE PILL NATIONAL TOUR at Orpheum Theatre

Some shows you see. This show you feel.

Joy, love, heartache, strength, wisdom, catharsis, life — everything we’ve been waiting to see in a Broadway show — is here in the exhilarating, fearless new musical based on Alanis Morissette’s world-changing music.

We chat with Heidi Blickenstaff who plays Mary Jane Healy in the national tour of Jagged Little Pill. 

Have you been to Minnesota before or is this your first time and do you have any favorite places here or places you're hoping to check out while you're here?

It's a great question. I have been to Minnesota before. I was a part of a touring production, but Jared, I toured so much in my twenties, I can't remember what show it was through Minneapolis with. I want to say it was the Full Monty, but it might have been Jekyll and Hyde. So I have been here before, but what I do remember is that it was so cold, we really didn't do very much and so I remember winding around in all of the little skyways that connect the city so you don't have to go outside. I remember that and weaving out of very interesting corners of the interior city, but I haven't spent too much time outside and so we have some cast members that know Minneapolis very well and they're going to be showing us around. So I look forward to all the amazing things that this city has to offer in this week that we're going to be here.

What is your favorite Alanis Morissette song and then what is your favorite Alanis Morissette song in the show? Like the album versus the show itself?

Yeah, I think I'm one of the real ones. Like I'm a real Alanis fan and we're very close in age and when Jagger Little Pill came out in 1995, it kind of blew my mind. And as Alanis continued to make new albums, I was with her every step of the way. There's kind of an obscure song that I love called Torch and it's basically about her breakup with Ryan Reynolds. And that song, for anybody that's looking for the most beautiful, gracious breakup song that's your like, it's like the dream breakup of all time. It just makes you love Alanis and Ryan Reynolds so much. I highly recommend listening to that. Also, if you just want to cry it out, that's a great song. But my favorite song in the show to sing, I think it's kind of a tie. I'm lucky enough to sing Forgiven and Uninvited and I think for my inner rock star, I like singing. That song allows me to tap into all things that I have always loved about Alanis's voice and her rage and her depth and her poetry. That's the song that I'm just like, oh my God, that's such a dream to sing. But uninvited is so haunting. And it's always also been a favorite of mine to listen to on the radio because I'd never heard anything like that. And it's just like this just epic rock ballad that doing that night after night, especially the way we get to do it in the show as it's paired with what's happening in the story and with the choreography, it's just kind of an extraordinary moment. And I feel really lucky to sing both of those songs.

What do you enjoy most about playing Mary Jane Healy?

It's such a good question because enjoyment is certainly a complicated thing. Mary Jane is such a complicated character and is going through so much turmoil. And happily, she ends in a place of hope, but she is perfectly imperfect as she likes to describe herself. I think one of my favorite things about playing Mary Jane is that this character kind of has let me use every trick in my there's. Obviously, you get to rock out to Alanis's biggest, baddest songs and the depths with which she goes as an actor. That's kind know, it's pretty thrilling to be able know, experience all the highs and all the lows that Mary Jane experiences, but also the know, I think the fact that I also get to lean into how funny Diablo has so masterfully written this script and written this character that it takes me to all the corners of my facility as an actor. And so it's exhausting, but it is exhilarating to be able to use this much of, I think, what I bring to the table as an artist.

Along with that, this show is so heavy with many subjects and context,  how do you as you're performing this show multiple times a week, how do you just prepare yourself or kind of also take care of yourself, too?

Yeah, it is a huge, emotional, deep dive. And my own life intersects with Mary Jane's life in many so, you know, especially early on when I was doing this night after night, I think it was very challenging to kind of keep my head healthy, keep my body healthy. It's easier now because I've done this more than 300 times. And so it's it's I mean, it's still it's still like, incredibly it pushes my my limits emotionally, vocally, physically, you know, soulfully every night. But I think I'm a little more used to it now. And I think as a company, we really do take care of each other because all of us it's not just me, all of us are taking this deep dive every night. And our audience is also taking that deep dive with us. We ask them to come with us on this kind of scary ride. And I think, obviously, I do the things that everybody always says. I prioritize sleep and I have to be very careful with what I eat and drink, and I can't really go out and I don't do a lot of extracurricular talking. I do yoga. I do all those things that a human being has to do to be able to do this as many times a week. As I do it. But also, I have a really great support system with my husband, my therapist, my cast, my creative team. And everybody out here on the road is really prioritizing taking care of themselves and each other because it is such heavy material.

What is your favorite moment in the show?

There are so many. I mean, that's like one of the gifts of this role is that there just are moments that I feel like only if I'm lucky will I have this kind of experience again on stage. But I really do love doing uninvited with my castmate, Jenna Van Elslander, who's like an extraordinary dancer actor. And she and I have this battle of sort of fighting for my soul. She plays my shadow self as I'm overdosing. Spoiler alert. I know you've seen it. And doing that scene every night, it never gets old. I never am like, oh, my God, where is this coming from? It feels like a privilege every night to be doing that with her. And she has also become my very close friend. And to be able to share an artistic space with someone you love so much doing something so unusual, it's like you kind of have to see it if you know, you know if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. It is an extraordinary moment. And I sort of can't believe that all of the creative minds that it took to bring that to the stage it just was such this synergistic moment that created this very special three minutes of art. And I am very privileged to do that with Jenna every night.

Why is the story of Jagged Little Pill relevant to todays audiences and what do you hope the audiences take away from seeing this production? 

I don't think you can see Jagged Little Pill and not see yourself or someone that you love reflected up on that stage. Jagged deals with so many issues, know, addiction to sexual assault, to sexuality and gender issues, to racism, to a marriage falling apart, to a kid feeling totally stifled by being a perfect kid for his parents. There are so many people on stage that I think everyone can identify with. And these characters really go on this ride of turmoil and breaking apart and ultimately coming back together but not in a way that is perfect, which is one of the things I love about Jagged is that it doesn't end in a perfect way. It's not a fairy tale ending. It's a very real, human. I think, you know, our audiences can really relate to that because life is really messy and really complicated. And it may look like things are perfect on the outside, but we all know that life is hard. Life is beautiful and life is hard. And I don't think you can be a human being and not know what that feels like relative to your life. Everybody has different struggles. We all feel pain and everyone in our audience is struggling and is in pain. And so I think you absolutely can't help but see yourself reflected up on that stage. And we do end in this place of hope. And even though we've taken you kind of down to the depths of a lot of stuff in Jagged, I think we leave you in a place of hope. And then backed up with Alanis's extraordinary, iconic album, I think you will feel things you were not expecting to feel all at the same time. You were like head banging. So I think it's a really special night of theater.

Thank you Heidi for your time! 

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