FINDING HER ‘VOICE’

THE ‘WAITRESS’ STAR COMPOSES HER LIFE STORY FOR NEW APPLE TV PLUS SERIES

Elements of Sara Bareilles’ life make their way into her new Apple TV Plus series

FOR “LITTLE VOICE,” the new Apple TV Plus series that reunites Sara Bareilles with showrunner Jessie Nelson, her collaborator on Broadway’s “Waitress,” there was little doubt that a lot of touchstones of Bareilles’ life would make their way into the storylines. It probably counts as an Easter egg for the singer-songwriter’s fans when the lead character, an aspiring young songwriter in New York named Bess, played by Brittany O’grady (“Star,” “Black Christmas”), casually tries on a man’s hat — an early hallmark of Bareilles’ image. And if Bess using a storage locker as her rehearsal space seems far-fetched, that’s pure autobiography. “That’s where I used to rehearse, at a storage unit facility in Marina del Rey — rolling that metal door and seeing all my keyboards there,” Bareilles says, “although Bess’ storage unit is slightly nicer than mine was.” The show features previously unheard material by Bareilles, who wrote or co-wrote the music (with the likes of Justin Tranter, Hillary Lindsey and Lori Mckenna). Nelson says one reason nine episodes was set as a target for the inaugural season was to be able to showcase and carefully integrate just the right amount of original songs. The showrunner explains the origins of the title tune: “Sara actually had written a song called ‘Little Voice’ 20 years ago for her first album, which was also called ‘Little Voice,’ and they had told her she couldn’t put it on her album. So there it was, waiting for us, like a love letter from her 23-yearold self to now. It was perfect and kind of set us on what our theme was.” Some other songs Bareilles had written when she was younger but never recorded also worked their way into the show. But many were composed for the series. Nelson says she wanted the pilot episode to be about a person who knows where she’s going but doesn’t have the tools or the confidence to get there. “I said to Sara, ‘You know, it’s a lot about that age of “I don’t know, I don’t know.”’ And the next day, an MP3 arrives: ‘I Don’t Know’ — Sara had written the episode’s title song.” Bareilles says that in Episode 2, the tune “Coming Back to You” is from a time in her life “where I was trying to get back to the purest connection between me and the muse — and that’s what that moment is for Bess as well. She’s trying to sing for herself again, in a way.” The newer songs fall somewhere between the writing-for-character of “Waitress” and what Bareilles would write for an album. “We want Bess to be a character who has this special, natural ability to write a beautiful pop song,” Bareilles says, “and they didn’t have to be expositional songs to move the plot forward. But we did want to capture the theme of the moment and watch her metabolize her world through song, which is what I naturally do anyway. It was a really fun exercise to get into the psychology of where she might be at that moment.” Will there be a soundtrack? “Oh, we’re doing all kinds of stuff, honey,” Bareilles laughs. “We’re doing soundtrack album, concept record, playlists — lots of music from the world of ‘Little Voice.’”