Broadway, Waitress will soon have used to be yours. The musical based on the 2007 indie film will close up shop at the Brooks Atkinson Theater on January 5 next year, after a nearly four-year run on Broadway. With music and lyrics from Sara Bareilles, who did stints in the show throughout its run, Waitress was the first Broadway musical to have an all-female principal creative team, including director Diane Paulus and book writer Jessie Nelson (who’s currently working with Bareilles on an Apple TV+ series). It follows the story of Jenna, who works at a diner in the South who has an abusive husband and focuses her creative energy into baking pies.
The musical started performances on March 25, 2016, and earned four Tony nominations (for musical, score, lead actress Jessie Mueller, and featured actor Christopher Fitzgerald). It won none, though it faced stiff competition in the form of Hamilton, which swept the awards that year. Waitress recently opened on the West End starring Smash’s Katharine McPhee (one of many who starred as Jenna on Broadway), and is also on a national tour. According to its producers, the show is also planning productions in Australia and Holland in 2020, Japan in 2021, and is in talks with “over 20 international markets.†It will also live on in the many, many future cabaret performances of the song “She Used to Be Mine,†which has become a standard in its own right, though of course it’s always hard to top Jessie Mueller’s original version. So, here’s an excuse for me to make you watch it again.