‘Jagged Little Pill’ role is a welcome first start for local actor
It was about 13 years ago that Lee H. Alexander attended a production of “Peter Pan” at the Fisher Theatre, later meeting its star, Cathy Rigby, in the lobby.
“I was able to get a picture and a signed CD — that really piqued my interest in theater,” recalls the Farmington Hills native, an alumnus of Detroit Country Day School and the University of Michigan. “I’ve seen a lot of shows at the Fisher — “Jeckyll & Hyde,” “Annie”…The Fisher has been the theater I’ve always dreamed of playing at. I never knew I’d have the opportunity so soon in my career.”
Alexander, 23, will be at the Fisher during the next couple of weeks as part of the Ensemble in “Jagged Little Pill,” the Tony Award-winning musical based on Alanis Morissette’s multiplatinum 1995 album. With Diablo Cody’s prize-winning book, it builds the story of the Healys — a family of four with dark secrets and deep divides under a happy artifice — around Morissette’s songs, including the Top 10 hits “You Oughta Know,” “Hand in My Pocket,” “Ironic,” “You Learn,” “Head Over Feet” and “All I Really Want.”
The album also won five Grammy Awards, while the Original Broadway Cast recording won a Grammy for Best Musical Theatre album after its 2019 debut on the Great White Way.
“I think it’s a beautiful marriage between an album that so many people related to on a very deep level and, really, a spectacular story,” Alexander says. “I think people think of ‘jukebox musicals as a cash grab; it’s really about the music, not the story. This is an anomaly in that sense. It feels like the songs are really written for this story…that these characters HAVE to sing these songs rather than songs you just kind of put into a cycle.
“So it’s not your typical jukebox