NEW YORK _ Elizabeth Stanley is getting a crash course in suburban motherhood, courtesy of the new Alanis Morissette musical "Jagged Little Pill."
The hotly anticipated Broadway production, inspired by Grammy Award winner Morissette's seminal 1995 album of the same name, opens at the Broadhurst Theatre Thursday. Directed by Diane Paulus, with music by Morissette and Glen Ballard and a book by "Juno" screenwriter Diablo Cody, the show offers a searing look at the pressures of suburbia as experienced by the Healy family _ the uptight, appearance-obsessed Mary Jane (Stanley), her workaholic husband (Sean Allan Krill), straight-arrow son (Derek Klena) and rebellious, adopted African-American daughter (Celia Rose Gooding).
The story opens with Mary Jane composing one of those well-intentioned but wearisome Christmas card letters detailing their oh-so-Instagrammable lives, from typical teen angst to Trader Joe's, SoulCycle victories to sexual assault. Wait ... what? Things take an unexpected turn when a high school student (Kathryn Gallagher) is assaulted at a teen party, and we soon learn everyone has secrets you wouldn't want to share in that Christmas card.
