Sometimes a little voice can say the biggest things.
This is a line from a Sara Bareilles song, aptly entitled Little Voice.
But, when Bareilles, after years trying to break through, finally got her shot, some record execs felt the song wasn’t ‘strong enough’ to be on her debut album. She, in turn, decided to title the album Little Voice to, as the singer wrote in an instagram post, “honor it and tether myself to the sentiment: That my little voice was with me wherever I went, even if it was a whisper.”
That album sold over one million copies and garnered Bareilles two Grammy nominations, for Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
Bareilles has also been nominated for a Tony Award for her musical contributions to the show Waitress.
Perhaps that executive is rethinking his or her decision as the song and it’s sentiment are now the fuel for a new series about a singer-songwriter who undertakes a journey of self-discovery via her music.
Little Voice follows Bess King, a New Yorker who is navigating rejection, love, and complicated family issues while she eeks out time to pursue songwriting and performing. Her biggest struggle though is not only finding her authentic voice but the courage to use it.
The series features original music by Bareilles who also serves as an executive producer. She is joined on the creative team by J.J. Abrams and Jessie Nelson. Nelson helped create the series and serves as showrunner. She and Bareilles previously collaborated on Waitress, with Nelson writing the book of the musical.
Nelson says that in crafting the series she knew where she wanted to begin the story and how she felt it should end, but that it was everything else that was tricky. “I had those two markers so the real challenge was in weaving the characters arcs through the story and making sure that the theme of each episode was sort of honored by all the characters and then after that came making sure that the songs for each episode worked.”
Her collaboration with Bareilles was a bit different for each episode, explains Nelson. “Well, the song Little Voice already existed so that one I inherited and it was just great to be able to really use that song correctly in the series.”
Elaborating a bit more on integrating the music into the narrative, Nelson says, “For instance, in the pilot I knew that I wanted our main character to grapple with those thoughts of, ‘I don’t know how to get where I want to go, how to get past this moment I’m stuck in.’ So, I talked with Sara about these feelings and the next day an mp3 with a song showed up in my inbox.”
For subsequent episodes, Nelson says that sometimes she used songs that already existed and were just reworked for the narrative, and other times songs were written specifically for a storyline.
The series also weaves a bit of female musical history into Bess’ story, which is all by design, says Nelson. “I asked Sara a lot about who inspired her when she was young and she talked about Carole King and Joni Mitchell and Aretha Franklin, so we made a point to show how those voices influenced our main character, just as they have Sara.”
She says that it was also, “a really great way to very organically tap into a lot of the music that we love and pepper than into the series.”
To tell a compelling, emotional story inspired by Bareilles’ real-life experience, Nelson knew that it was important to draw the singer out a bit, to get to the emotional core of her journey, a process that isn’t always easy. “I did have the benefit of working with her on Waitress. We’d already been in the trenches of crafting a Broadway musical which is so hard. We were strangers prior to that, and then we were thrust together, neither of us having ever written anything for theater. It was during that time that we forged a bond that I think really helped us learn to trust each other.”
Nelson says that Barielles knew, “If I was asking her a personal question it was for the benefit of the story, to find a deeper meaning to it.”
Not being well versed in producing a television show, Nelson admits that she and Barielles made a few missteps along the way. “Well, our lead character walks dogs so we have five dogs in the series, and then we saddled ourselves with two musical numbers in each episode, so that was challenging.” Laughing a little, Nelson adds, “We didn’t quite realize how much we didn’t know, so it was a little bit like Mr Toad’s Wild Ride, But, that’s part of the fun of the show. It’s messy and alive.”
Conversely, Nelson says that sometimes ‘gifts’ just appeared. “We were shooting in Central Park and there happened to be a guy playing saxophone so we got him to sign a release and suddenly there’s this great saxophone player in our episode.”
In an interesting twist, Nelson herself is not a musician. “My family is musical so I was raised around it and I’m aware of the perils of that world, so I feel like aspects of my story are in this, and I believe that aspects of every young person’s story are in it as well. Overall, I was glad to contribute musically in certain ways, but I’m not a musician. I’m a lover of music, and that’s very different.”
Another aspect of her life that Nelson is proud to have brought to the project lies in the fact that the series features several neuro-diverse characters. She explains, “Sarah and I both have a big relationship with the neuro-diverse community so we knew we wanted to bring that community into the show. Working with those actors and having them be such extraordinary actors and so easy to work with was hugely exciting for me.”
She is quick to add, “There’s such a stigma in Hollywood about maybe working with actors on the spectrum – that it will slow you down or make the process more difficult – I have to say is just incorrect. For me, it made the process better. It was like our little work group was enhanced because we people from that community alongside us, working on a project we were all passionate about, and passion like that is universal no matter if you’re on the spectrum or not.”
Nelson is aware that some people might be tempted to write the series off as just another story about a musician trying to ‘make it,’ but she says this is more than that. “I think what’s different is this isn’t about an overnight success and it isn’t even really about success. It’s about struggling to find your authentic voice, and then once you find it, letting it out and staying true to it. So the goal isn’t success, the goal is to be true to yourself in every moment. I just don’t think you see that very often so hopefully this will lead people down their own path to accomplish that.”
‘Little Voice’ is available for streaming July 10th on Apple
