“The Kelly Clarkson Show” season 6 will have even more Kellyoke, including duets and 4 Chappell Roan covers“”

"We just want a sense that anything can happen and, if you tune in, you're never quite sure where the conversation is going to go," showrunner Alex Duda tells EW.

Kelly Clarkson’s future is so bright, it’s blinding.

No, literally. The three-time Grammy winner is rocking sunglasses as she prepares to film an outdoor performance with her house band, Y’all, and special guest Miranda Lambert for season 6 of The Kelly Clarkson Show. The only problem?

“The sun is unforgiving,” Clarkson exclaims, causing the audience surrounding the stage to laugh.

Their performance is part of The Kelly Clarkson Show’s two-day concert on the 30 Rock rooftop in celebration of the talk show’s season 6 premiere. Inspired by the Beatles’ impromptu performance depicted in the 2021 documentary Get Back as well as U2’s Grammy award-winning music video for their 1987 hit “Where the Streets Have No Name,” the festival will see Clarkson speak with a medley of actors, musicians, and ‘rad humans’ — everyday people making a difference within their communities — on its larger and, thankfully, covered stage.

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“We were watching [Get Back] towards the end of last year and thought, let’s have a concert. We have this roof that's part of our two buildings, maybe the Kellyoke’s on the roof,” executive producer and showrunner Alex Duda tells Entertainment Weekly. “Maybe the Kellyoke is the siren tone that brings up people from New York. And then we have a group party — the last party of the summer and the first party of the fall.”

The Emmy award-winning series has been leaning into the unexpected magic that only the Big Apple can bring ever since making the leap from Los Angeles to New York City last season. “We're across the hall from The Tonight Show. So anything can happen, like Jimmy [Fallon] will run in and surprise us,” Duda shares. “We had Jared Leto here once, who was climbing the Empire State Building, and he called our bookers and said, ‘Hey, can I surprise Kelly? I'm going to do The Tonight Show.’ It's like, ‘If you get here in 10 minutes!’ And he did it and she was so surprised.”

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Leto may have actually started a movement. “Then other people started doing it, like Chris Pratt brought lasagna on a bike,’ Duda says. “I think the biggest thing since we came to New York was just turning the cameras and showing a little of our wires, because we're in [David] Letterman's old studio, and this was an ‘anything can happen’ place. So we're tapping into that energy a little bit here at 30 Rock.”

Still, some things haven’t changed. The show itself is still a mix of buzzy celebrity interviews, human interest stories, and Clarkson’s celebrated Kellyoke covers, the latter of which will be given more airtime this season. “This is Kelly herself. It's unbridled joy, positivity, it's music, it's humor, it's heart, it's all those things together and just in a very real way,” Duda says. “We just built the show around her. It was easy — she's a connector. So do you like this panel? Do you want to start with music? All that. It really just came from her.”

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Ever the performer, Clarkson keeps the good energy afloat in between takes by singing, dancing, and chatting with the audience. At one point, after completing her interview with The Penguin star Colin Farrell, she turns to the crowd and remarks, "That is a good-looking man. God had a good day.”

Clarkson’s authenticity was one of the first things that caught Duda’s attention when the showrunner, whose credits include The Tyra Banks Show and Steve Harvey, first met the singer to discuss a potential talk show years ago. “She's exactly who you think she is," she says. "When we met her, we were supposed to have a one hour meeting; we were there for two hours. We came out of the lot walking down Jimmy Stewart Boulevard walking on sunshine, so happy because she's authentic and in daytime that's the most important thing.”

Clarkson, who also serves as an executive producer on the series, plays an active role in shaping the show’s voice. While interviewing Lambert, she begins to ask a question before shutting it down and notifying production that she'd be skipping it because it’s “too TMZ."

She also gets final say in all of the Kellyoke picks, too. “I think the only criteria for a song she'll cover is that she has to connect to it emotionally somehow, or it's a nostalgic moment from somewhere earlier,” Jason Halbert, Clarkson's music director and longtime collaborator, says. “I think that's why you hear whenever people say, ‘Wow, she can cover all these genres and things.’ She is covering a ton of genres, but, really, she's doing one thing: she's connecting with stories that mean a lot to her. And so right now, in the next six weeks, we have four different Chappell Roan covers coming up, and I guarantee you that's because she's connecting with the story in those moments.”

Chappell Roan’s music will take center stage throughout premiere week, with Clarkson performing at least two tracks. “We love Chappell Roan at The Kelly Clarkson Show,” Clarkson remarks, noting that the “Pink Pony Club” songstress was kind enough to approve the tunes for the show.

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The process of selecting, arranging, preparing, and performing Kellyoke songs has changed over the last 800+ performances on the show. The segment, which was taken from Clarkson's tour, started out by taking suggestions from fans, but has since grown to receiving requests from staff and, more recently, celebrities during commercial breaks.

“They're like, ‘Oh my gosh, I'd like to hear you cover this.’ So we're always listening,” Halbert says. “I'm keeping a running list.” Some star picks have even made it to air, like Bryce Dallas Howard’s suggestion that Clarkson perform Tears for Fears’ “Mad World” in 2021.

Halbert also teases that even more music is on the way this season, too. “You're going to see more duets, more guest artists in the Kellyoke spot,” he says. “We've always had a really good blend of legendary celebrities, up-and-comers, and then some people you've never heard of, because [Clarkson] loves to give people a shot. And so I think you're gonna see more of that this season, which is really exciting for us.”

Duda, meanwhile, hopes the season will continue to build upon its mission of blending songs and stories together. “We just want a sense that anything can happen and, if you tune in, you're never quite sure where the conversation is going to go or what you might see,” she says. “We just want to be spontaneous and fun.”

The Kelly Clarkson Show airs weekdays on NBC.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.