Waitress

If there can be a TV show about nothing, then there can be a Broadway musical about pie.

The hit musical Waitress tells the story of a waitress in a Southern diner with a talent for baking pies.  A HUGE talent.  These pies are not your average pies--apple, pecan, blueberry, etc.  They are creations based on life experience and made with all sorts of out of the ordinary ingredients.  Here are some sample pie names from the show:

• MARSHMALLOW MERMAID PIE
• OLD JOE’S HORNY PIE
• FALLIN’ IN LOVE CHOCOLATE MOUSSE PIE
• I DON’T WANT EARL’S BABY PIE
• PREGNANT MISERABLE SELF PITYING LOSER PIE
• LONELY CHICAGO PIE

When we first arrived at the theater, we smelled a baking pie in the lobby.  Before every performance, a pie is assembled and then baked in the lobby to help the audience get in the mood for a pie extravaganza.  While most theaters sell cocktails and candy at the concession stand, the Waitress theater offers for sale mini pies (photo below).  Before the performance and during intermission, vendors in waitress outfits roam the aisles offering the mini pies to audience members.  

Plus, the stage is flanked by pie towers, with traditional refrigerated pie cases reaching from stage floor to the top of the proscenium.  

Of course, pies are central to the story throughout the play.  Every scene involves a pie in one way or another.  Yum!

For pie lovers, Waitress is a must see.  For fans of Broadway musicals or the music of Sara Bareilles (Brave), Waitress is an enjoyable evening of musical theater.  We left the performance hungry for more and also hungry for some pie.  (Not to worry.  We scored some pie the next day.)

Waitress stars the very talented singer Jessie Mueller, who originated the role of Carole King in the Broadway musical Beautiful.  

Waitress is another film-to-stage adaptation.  The musical is based on the 2007 film Waitress with Keri Russell and follows the story very closely.  The music propels the story forward and makes it even more emotional and compelling than the film. 

P.S.  Last Fall, we had the good fortune to see Sara Bareilles perform live at a charity event.  She sang both Brave and She Used to Be Mine, a song from Waitress.  The score for Waitress received a 2016 Tony Award nomination.