‘Shucked’ co-creator Clark brings corn to Broadway

As a kid Brandy Clark went to a sparse concerts Clark loved them and connected speedily with live music But she also recognized that in-person performances can be rough and raw So when as a high schooler she saw a touring Broadway company do Phantom of the Opera at a Seattle theater she was floored I d never seen live music that was so perfect Clark notified the Herald It was exactly like the cast album and I was so impressed by that In fact Clark was impressed by everything the amount the scenery the spectacle She had performed in musicals already notably a area theater version of The Music Man She had watched plenty of movie musicals with her family But seeing it live made her want to write her own Broadway show Decades later Clark made her dream come true with Shucked April at Citizens Opera House But she took a roundabout way to get to Broadway Through her own solo career and as a songwriter for others Clark has built an astounding catalog of music She has scored Grammy nominations won the Country Music Association Award for Song of the Year and written hits with or for Kacey Musgraves Jennifer Nettles and Miranda Lambert Part of what made co-writer Shane McAnally and I right for Shucked is that we had written a lot of story songs Clark commented of the crossover between country music and Broadway The part that was challenging was that we had learned how to tell full stories in three and half minutes now we had to do a two and half hour musical where we needed to tell only a little bit of the story at a time That story is a farm-to-fable that follows Maizy as she travels from her home in fictional Cob County to get help after the town s corn starts dying In the big city Maizy meets corn healthcare provider and workable con-man Gordy making Shucked somewhere between Hee Haw and The Music Man a nice nod to Clark s first foray into the world of musicals Our director Jack O Brien really pushed us to make it something more than funny but not too much more than funny Clark disclosed He disclosed This is like a feather we have to keep it floating I love Les Mis it might be my favorite top-to-bottom tally but I learned through writing Shucked that I could never write a musical like that she continued I don t think I could work on a musical that wasn t a comedy in a few way Shucked certainly isn t Les Miserables see all those songs packed with corny puns But it has exposed an equally devoted audience In Shucked nabbed eight Tony Award nods and Drama Desk nominations The show s success made the nearly decade-long process of writing and rewriting and COVID interruptions worth it for Clark It felt like we made ten albums over ten years and one of them got to come out and the rest were shelved she commented But I don t know a much bigger high than having a show on Broadway Hopefully she will feel that high again Between writing for other stars and making her own music she is already at work on a second Broadway musical For tickets and details visit boston broadway com Shucked co-creator Brandy Clark has scored Grammy nominations and won the Country Music Association Award for Song of the Year Photo courtesy Broadway in Boston