Waitress, the hit Broadway musical that played quite 1,500 performances during its 2016-2020 run, will return for a limited, four-month engagement this September, with composer Sara Bareilles within the lead role, producers announced today. Bareilles will star because of the pie-making Jenna Hunterson when the show begins performances Sept. 2 at Broadway’s Barrymore Theatre, continuing within the role through Oct. 17. Waitress, produced by Barry and Fran Weissler, will then continue through Jan. 9, 2022.
Her replacement for the rest of the run, also as an additional cost, wasn’t announced. “I couldn’t miss the chance to be there when Broadway welcomes audiences back to theaters that are sitting dark for over a year,” Bareilles said during a statement. “It may be a gift to urge to revisit the gorgeous story of Waitress, centered around hope, resilience, and therefore the support of our chosen family. It’s so special to be ready to celebrate those self-same qualities at this moment in time within our theater family.”
Bareilles added that, like “so many of us everywhere the planet,” the Broadway community “has endured great loss and tremendous hardship, and that we are all changed. But with this alteration comes powerful motivation to bring what we’ve learned and experienced this past year to form something even more beautiful and more intentional. Broadway is grit and beauty, magic and mayhem, and that I can’t wait to feel the electricity that pulses through all folks because the curtains rise once more .”
The Weissler’s called Waitress “a prime example of resilience, within the same way that New Yorkers and every one Americans have grown over that last year.” Broadway, they continued, “is returning because the engine that drives any City’s recovery, drawing audiences from around the world to be wowed, to celebrate, to cry and to laugh again.” Barry Weissler suggested during a May 5 Wall Street Journal interview that the musical would return post-Covid, but provided few details.
The musical is predicated on Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 film of an equivalent name, and with its debut in 2016 became the primary Broadway musical ever to possess four women within the four top creative team spots, with a book by Jessie Nelson, music, and lyrics by Sara Bareilles, choreography by Lorin Latarro and direction by Diane Paulus. The musical, originally starring Jessie Mueller within the name part, recouped its $12 million production investment in but 10 months, one among only two new musicals – the opposite being Hamilton – from the 2015-2016 Broadway season that went into profit that year.
additionally, to the Broadway production, new international productions are within the works, including a UK tour. Waitress is produced on Broadway by Barry and Fran Weissler and Norton and Elayne Herrick. Waitress tells the story of Jenna, an expert pie maker stuck during a village and a loveless marriage. When a baking contest during a nearby county offers her an opportunity to escape, Jenna fights to reclaim a long-forgotten part of herself.
