Singer-songwriter Brandy Clark brings her “Art of the Storyteller” show to Portland on Thursday for an evening of music and conversation with fellow artist Lori McKenna.

Clark is a Grammy and CMA (Country Music Association) award-winning and Tony-nominated musician.

In 2024, she took home a Grammy for Best Americana Performance for “Dear Insecurity,” a duet with Brandi Carlile from her 2023 self-titled album, which Carlile also produced. The piano-based song is an unflinching master class in confronting self-doubt.

Dear insecurity
Oh, we meet again
Don’t try to flirt with me
You’re not really my friend
But you take up half this bed
Livin’ rent-free in my head

A few hours before a New York City show with Rosanne Cash, Clark spoke about the tour, her forthcoming album with producer Shooter Jennings, and the Broadway musical she co-wrote that’s now being adapted into a film.

Your current tour is all shows with guest artists like Rodney Crowell, Rosanne Cash and Patty Griffin. What’s the format?

We’re on stage together the whole time. When I started doing this, my idea was to combine “Inside the Actor’s Studio” with a guitar player. I come out and I talk about my guest, and I talk about where they intersect with me. I talk about my first impression, and what drew me to that person. 

What will the Portland show with Lori McKenna be like?

With someone like Lori, who’s an actual friend, I’ll probably get into the fact that when I first met Lori, I thought, this can’t be real, someone can’t really be this nice, but she really is. Then I’ll bring her out, and I always have about 10 questions. I think what the audience loves is that it’s a conversation, they feel like they’re eavesdropping  on a conversation between two artists, and there’s music woven in there. With Lori, there’ll probably be a lot of music. I’m bringing a couple of musicians, and they’ll be ready to play whatever Lori wants to play and we’ll just kind of pass it back and forth. At the end, I open it up to a Q&A from the audience.

Can you talk about your next album?

After I made my last record with Brandi Carlile, which was just a dream, Shooter Jennings reached out to me. He wrote me this beautiful novel of a text about how it would be a dream to work together. He and I went into the studio and we did a couple of songs and it was great, we worked with some of the best sessions players you can find. There was one song in particular, “American Roots” that we recorded and I felt like we had missed it. I said “let’s cut it with my road band because because we just have something going on.” We went in, and it went so well we recorded six songs. After that, he said “your band is great, let’s just roll with them.” So what started out as a couple of songs, we now have 21 songs in the can. The problem is figuring out “OK, what’s the album?”

What’s the plan?

We have two albums worth of material and I’m not a fan of double albums. So we’ll follow it with another album. I’m in a cycle of proliferation. I got lucky that the right people all came together at the right time, and we’re doing some things that I’m really proud of.

The Broadway musical “Shucked,” which you wrote with Shane McAnally, is being made into a film. What’s happening with that?

Right now they’re working on the screenplay. I’m not involved with the actual writing of the screenplay but once they get it to a spot where they need new songs, because they probably will, then I’ll be more involved. 

Was it different writing a song for a musical?

It was, but the more that we focused on it not being different, the better the songs were. When Shane and I would try to write “musical theater songs,” they never landed. What worked best for us was to write songs, and then we had a great musical director, Jason Howland, who musicalized them. He would do what needed to happen to make them work in musical theater. I would say the biggest difference, though, is with writing commercial songs, you’re telling a story  in three and a half minutes. With a musical, you’ve got to tell just a fraction of the story, maybe in seven minutes. I’ve always loved that challenge as a songwriter. 

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IF YOU GO:

Brandy Clark with Lori McKenna, 8 p.m. Thursday. State Theatre, 609 Congress St., Portland, $25-$55. statetheatreportland.com.