Covid, the Musical? Jodi Picoult Is Giving It a Try. Working with a playwright, the best-selling author has turned the symptoms of illness into songwriting prompts for a new musical called “Breathe.” Jodi Picoult and Timothy Allen McDonald were inspired by Jonathan Larson’s “Rent” in trying to capture the impact of another virus on the stage.Credit...From left: Kieran Kesner for The New York Times; Sara Krulwich/The New York Times By Elisabeth Egan May 10, 2021 About halfway through “Breathe,” a new musical created by the best-selling novelist Jodi Picoult and the veteran playwright Timothy Allen McDonald, a fed-up, locked-down father of three sums up the challenges of the pandemic in a two-word refrain: “It’s brutal!”