Why Bestselling Novelist Jodi Picoult Has Become a Prolific Musical Theater Creator

variety.com:

Gordon Cox Theater EditorMost people know Jodi Picoult as the busy author of more than 25 bestselling books, including “My Sister’s Keeper,” “Small Great Things” and “The Pact.” But more recently, she’s collaborated on a musical based one of her own novels — and the resulting show, “Between the Lines,” is just the first of several stage projects she’s got in the works.Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below:On the new episode of “Stagecraft,” Variety‘s theater podcast, the author explained why she can’t get enough of making musicals. “It’s been lovely to understand the joy of collaborating as a writer,” she said. “When you write a novel, it’s very lonely.

Having all those other brains to work off of is just a delightful experience. I wasn’t ready to stop.” So she kept collaborating.

At the height of pandemic, she and her “Between the Lines” co-creator Timothy Allen McDonald, along with five different teams of songwriters, released the digital musical “Breathe.” Later this year, her musical adaptation of “The Book Thief” (written with McDonald and “Between the Lines” songwriters Kate Anderson and Elyssa Samsel) premieres in the U.K.

And the quartet of creators also has the rights to adapt “Austenland,” the 2007 novel that became a 2013 movie, for the stage.For now, though, the focus is on “Between the Lines,” based on the 2012 YA novel that she wrote with her daughter Samantha van Leer.