Katie Rose Clarke on Creating a Story Song With 'Margarita Christmas'

Just in time for the holiday season, Wicked's longest-running Broadway Glinda, Katie Rose Clarke, released a new song, "Margarita Christmas." about how she celebrates back home in Texas — and she and composer Steven Jamail told The Direct all about it.

Clarke was most recently seen on Broadway in the 2023-24 revival of Merrily We Roll Along, starring alongside Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, and Lindsay Mendez. Her other most well-known credit is her aforementioned time in Wicked, having played Glinda on Broadway and on tour on and off over the course of 12 years.

Jamail, the song's composer, producer, and musical director, has written and orchestrated music for a variety of different events, concerts, shows, and other performances on Broadway, television, and across the United States.

They released "Margarita Christmas" on Nov. 25, after having performed it in various concerts and performances over the years.

Katie Rose Clarke and Steven Jamail Talk 'Margarita Christmas' Development

"I didn't want to write another cheesy musical theater Christmas song."

• The Direct: “How long did it take to write and, like, what steps went into the original production?”

Steven Jamail: "It happened really fast. I got asked to write a song for this song book series at Lincoln Center, and Katie [Rose Clarke] and I had started toying with the idea of writing together, and I had absolute writer's block. I was like, 'I don't want to write a Christmas song.' It's like, they're either really bad or they're really, really good, and there's no in between. And I didn't want to write another cheesy musical theater Christmas song. And I think Katie basically was like, 'You know what? Just grab a bottle of tequila, come over, we'll have a margarita Christmas,' and there's the hook, and then we went from there. And I think we kind of did it all in one night. It was really fast."

Katie Rose Clarke: "Yeah, we've kind of just been sitting on this song since then. That was, like, 10 years ago now. So we've just kind of been sitting on a song, but we've played it in small ways. We've recorded different parts of it, and it just slowly has evolved until finally, this Christmas, we decided it was just really time to kind of just make sure our names are on it and to put it out there into the world."

"I can just try things and sort of, you know, dip my toes in the writing waters with him and feel totally safe."

• The Direct: "I know you guys have been working together a little bit beforehand, but what got the gears moving in terms of writing together?"

Steven Jamail: "Katie has such good instincts. I feel like I'm very biased, but I feel like watching her on stage, she's always, like, three steps ahead of almost everyone else at all times. It's very much like a writer brain. And I'm like, 'I think you write, I think you don't know, but I think you write,' and [she] sure does.

Katie Rose Clarke: "I've never written anything, and it just takes, like, your best friend who sees things in you that you that you don't see in yourself. I mean [he] totally was such an advocate that I could do it. And I think it took somebody like that for me to actually believe in myself enough to really to try it. Plus Steven is such an accomplished and incredible composer that I was like, 'OK, at least I can just try things and sort of, you know, dip my toes in the writing waters with him and feel totally safe.'"

One Joke Did Not Make It Into the Final Cut

"It's such a story song."

• The Direct: "Were there any lines that got cut throughout writing it, or throughout performing it, or over the years, as you've performed it elsewhere, and why did they get cut? And can you share them?"

Katie Rose Clarke: "I think it came together so well. I think the trickiest part we had was with the bridge and figuring out how to... It's such a story song that it really kind of came together well. We've... I don't know how much to share about that one line that we go back and forth on."

Steven Jamail: "What is on the recording is very friendly to anything proper that we mentioned. And then we have one that's a little sassier and cheekier that sometimes we'll do live."

• The Direct: "What is it?"

Jamail: "We joke a little bit about Jose Cuervo in the song, like, the brand of tequila. And actually, they make my favorite tequila of all time, which is their La Familia, like high-end version... Sometimes people associate it with, like, that gold tequila. And so we make a joke, sometimes, live like, 'Ah, let's do something a little better than Cuervo this time when, Santa starts talking at the end.' But I think we've switched it to be like, they make really good stuff, and we would love them to use this song someday. So we have a much more friendlier version of that, which is what's on the record."

The General Response to the Song

"To have it officially out was super exciting. And everybody was just really excited for us to actually take to that step."

• The Direct: "What has the fan response been like? I saw a lot of my friends who are musical theater people were very excited to just have new content and have a new song. What has that response been like since it came out?"

Katie Rose Clarke: "Well, it's been so sweet. Our friends all kind of know it, and our families certainly know the song. People have been asking us to record it and release it, and our friend Alex Hartman was the one who mixes my voice, so she's known the song. Our circle really knows the song and has known it all these years ... So it's been around, it's been, like, in the ether, but to have it officially out was super exciting. And everybody was just really excited for us to actually take to that step, because that felt like a very big and official step. So our people were so supportive and really excited to, you know, amplify it on social media, which was really sweet."

Steven Jamail: "It's been funny hearing from a lot of my Texas friends or people that I went to high school with — which, we actually went to the same high school, so I'm sure Katie's heard from some — and it's not a big town that we're from, and I've been hearing mostly from them.

And, you know, I'll post stuff, and I'll put my music out there all the time, and I'll hear, like, nothing from the home crowd, but they sure have loved this, and I've been hearing a lot from those and that makes me happy, because I feel like our brand of Christmas and Southeast coastal Texas is not... No one gets it. It's very its own thing. It doesn't really get cold half the time. It's not an eggnog, hot toddy kind of place for parties. People make margaritas."

Real-Life Inspirations and Next Steps

"It ... just felt like a kind of a down, home song, and we use that influence hugely in the writing."

• The Direct: "What were some of the real life inspirations from your experiences that went into the song, if there are stories, if there are anecdotes, and then also musical inspirations?"

Katie Rose Clarke: "The way we grew up down on the Gulf coast of Texas ... That really was part of it. I remember so many Christmases where we didn't even do, like, Turkey and stuffing ... or whatever people do at Christmas, we would do, like, Mexican food and margaritas. I mean, that was something we would kind of do regularly in my family as just a way to switch it up. Especially post-Thanksgiving, everybody kind of wants something different. So many, many memories of just having, like, Mexican food and margs on Christmas morning or Christmas afternoon. ...

And because Steven and I grew up — I mean, our families knew each other. We grew up in same hometown, we knew each other growing up . It ... just felt like a kind of a down home song, and we use that influence hugely in the writing. And then, just having the country roots. I mean, ... that's the kind of music I grew up listening to."

Steven Jamail: "Before she became super famous in the country world, very early on in her career ... Trisha Yearwood came to Friendswood, Texas and did a concert — her big first single had just come out, and they booked her before she became super famous, but her fame was hitting right when she did this concert in our high school stadium, and ... it was like a founding influence and that sound and that type of song... You know, she still sounds unbelievable, but that's been in my head, and I always thought that she had such a cool crossover voice.

And a lot of her music — her country music — very much veered into musical theater a little bit, which is why she's always asked to perform at the Kennedy Center Honors, and does a lot of crossover stuff and whatnot. But anyways, that was a, kind of a core memory that made me always want to write a song for someone like that. And then, you know, you're behind the keys for Katie, and you're like, 'Oh yeah, there it is.'"

"My hope, too, is to have somebody else actually be the singer on it."

Katie Rose Clarke: "Truly, my hope, too, is to have somebody else actually be the singer on it. ... We've actually tried it with other singers, trying to get a different sound, and it ended up just being me in the end. But I mean, still, I would love to hear another vocalist on the on the song, someone that's more in that genre and in that, you know, country, Western world. That's what I would love, to hear that sound and that ... Maybe one day that will happen for us, like, that would be the dream."

• The Direct: "In the meantime, or in addition to that, though, do you see yourself performing it in any sort of live capacity moving forward?"

Clarke: "We kind of debuted it [in Houston], and it just went over so well, more than he and I ever even thought of, and people were coming up asking us where they could find it, and they were looking already, trying to find it on Spotify and Apple Music at the end of the concert. So that for us was like, "OK, we can really probably go ahead and put this out there.'

Plus, you know, wanting to make sure that it was our names on it and make sure we had, you know, ownership over it in an age where everybody's kind of got their phones out during the concert. So that was really exciting. But I don't know. I mean, I'm not really, I'm not a recording artist. I don't have aspirations to be a recording artist, but I do love writing, and it would be fun. I mean, I think if we could, Steven and I do concerts together regularly. So ... definitely, it will be probably a regular feature in our concerts, moving forward, for sure, especially in the holidays."

"Margarita Christmas" is available to stream on Spotify, iTunes and all streaming services, as well as on YouTube.