Pop singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles can officially add “waitress” to her list of occupations. Also, “Broadway actress.”
Bareilles announced on Instagram today that she will join the cast of the musical “Waitress” in the starring role of Jenna Hunterson, a gifted pie maker and rampant daydreamer who questions her unhappy marriage after an unexpected pregnancy. The musical, based on a 2007 film by Adrienne Shelly, was described on Vulture as “clearly, passionately, and for the most part delightfully a feminist musical.”
”I’m just beside myself!” she wrote on Instagram alongside her debut date and a joke: “My first show is MARCH 31. Panic attacks available now.”
The announcement marks Bareilles’ Broadway debut, yet she’s surely familiar with the show itself, given that she wrote the lyrics and composed the music.
Bareilles will succeed Jessie Mueller, who has played Jenna since “Waitress” opened last spring, and was notably transcendent in the role. Bareilles has some big shoes to fill; she plans to work with an acting coach and hit the gym to increase her physical stamina in preparation.
“It’s something I’ve been quietly mulling over since the show began,” Bareilles told The New York Times. “So I’m making the big jump, and it feels like a completion of sorts, a coming full circle with this project ... To me this feels like a very holistic return to where I started, even though it’s been a really long time.”
Good luck, Sara, we want to see you be brave!
Bareilles will star as Jenna for 10 weeks from March 31 to June 11. Get your tickets on the musical’s website.
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