Songwriter, arranger and performer Shaina Taub is having a banner 2016. The critically acclaimed music she wrote for, and performed, in Bill Irwin and David Shiner’s Old Hats was released in the spring courtesy of Sh-K-Boom Records, she also has a prominent part in Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown (at New York Theatre Workshop through July 31) and she will close the summer with a musical version of Twelfth Night she composed for The Public Theater’s Public Works. We got to talk to her about all these projects:

The musical theatre pieces you’ve starred in have a feeling of “anything can happen”, in how they engage with the audience and have an energy that feels like improvisation, despite obviously being very well rehearsed shows. Is this what attracted you to star in them?

Yeah, I feel so fortunate that I’ve been part of two Rachel Chavkin productions, because her style is to include the audience so they feel something real is happening, unlike having the power to turn the screen off like TV allows. Theatre happens all around you and I’m definitely drawn to that kind of work, but more than that I’m drawn to composers who have a unique sound like Dave Malloy and Anaïs Mitchell.

The music you composed for Old Hats is quite dark, which is interesting because it’s a show about clowns. How did you decide you wanted to take this approach?

I was inspired by the clowns themselves cause what makes their comedy so rich and truthful, is that it comes from human experience. They take human suffering and the reason it’s funny is because we can all relate to it. The clown characters are going through a difficult time, we recognize that in ourselves and laugh, so I wanted to reflect that in the songs. Take people to the dark side with the lyrics, but set it against a bright funny show tune and have the same tension happen.

You did the show in several cities, how did you know when the songs were “finished”? Were there moments when you wanted to go back and make rewrites?

Yeah, some of the songs preexisted the show, so I worked on the arrangements and that kind of thing. The new songs I was very actively rewriting, I worked close to the director Tina Landau, who is incredible, and getting her feedback to know when the songs were working. I love to rewrite and edit, sometimes it’s hard for me to step away and know when things are ready, so that’s when I get help from my collaborators.

Congratulations on getting to do Twelfth Night with the Public Theater, is it intimidating in any way to write songs based on Shakespeare?

He’s such an amazing collaborator! It’s great to take on this play that has been around for centuries, and has so many complex characters and a tight storyline, because all the dramatic heavy lifting has already been accomplished. So I can take a character like Viola to create a moment where she’s alone, and there is already so much I can work with. But it’s also exciting to take a character like that and look at it from a summer 2016 female perspective. What is this person that has gotten to see the world as both female and male? Now she’s looking at herself and feels empowered by wearing this costume of being male, so I wonder how does that feel for her as a woman? I’ve been interested in exploring gender identity via Twelfth Night in a way Shakespeare didn’t explore as much. It’s exciting to see why the play is still relevant.

Was it easy for you to find the sound of Twelfth Night?

What was fun about it was that Illyria is a fictional place, so no one is an expert in Illyria, and it can sound like anything! There are rules and templates I need to follow, but there is also a lot of freedom, because there is no one style I have to stay in, which is something I don’t like to do anyway.

How is it to write songs for characters rather than songs you will perform yourself? Is it easy to disassociate yourself from the lyrics and give them to the characters?

I love writing songs for myself, but even more I like writing songs for other voices. It is challenging, but just like in acting, every character that you play and every song that you write, you need to be pulling something from yourself. It’s fun to find the side of me that goes into Viola, the side of me that goes into Malvolio. I actually related a lot more to Malvolio than I thought I would, I feel he gets the short stick historically, he gets bullied and gets his comeuppance. But I have a lot of empathy for him, I feel like I get him and relate to him. I love getting into the minds of other characters.

That’s fascinating, I mean I guess if you had to do a musical of Macbeth you’d need to be “devil’s advocate” and write songs for him as well.

Totally, I don’t believe in oversimplifying characters to good or bad, heroes or villains, that’s not true to anyone. No one is black or white.

As a musical theatre actress, working in a musical someone else composed, how is it to balance both sides of your artistry? Does the environment of acting in a musical inspire you in your own work composing one?

Definitely. Being in Hadestown and working with Rachel Chavkin and Anaïs Mitchell inspires me a lot. This is the kind of work I want to make, I feel we’re always learning, I don’t think anyone reaches a point where they have learned too much. It’s a busy time but I wouldn’t have it any other way, this also forces me to be more disciplined because time to sit down and work on composing is harder to come by. So when I do find it, it’s much more precious.

You’re gonna be part of this great tradition of Shakespeare in the Park. Do you have any experiences seeing those shows that you hold dear?

Oh man, so many! Actually I saw The Tempest in 2013 which was the first piece by Public Works, with whom I’m doing Twelfth Night,  which is the community collaboration that has people from all over the city. So I remember seeing all these people from all walks of life singing and dancing together at the Delacorte Theater, and it was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever seen. Oskar Eustis and Lear deBessonet who conceived Public Work talk about it as a radical proposal to humanity of what the city could be. This idea of what if we could all collaborate, celebrate our differences and sing and dance together...imagine if the whole world could be this way. It knocked my socks off and I knew I’d do anything to work with this program. It’s truly meaningful to me to be a part of it now.

For more on Shaina Taub visit her website. Songs from Old Hats is now available on iTunes.