Sara Bareilles Reflects on HowWaitressChanged Her Life as Broadway Hit Comes to Streaming (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Sara Bareilles as Jenna in ‘Waitress: The Musical’.Photo:HBO Max

HBO Max

“And I know in due time, every right thing will find its right place,” the lead character of Jenna sings towards the end ofthe acclaimed Broadway musicalWaitress.

Turns out, that’s not just a lineSara Bareilleswrote, but a lesson she’s also learned duringWaitress' long journey.

As a filmed version of the stage hit is set to make its streaming premiere on Max Feb. 14, the singer-songwriter, 45 — who scored and starred in the musical adaptation ofthe late Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 movie of the same name — tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview that the entire process has been a “labor of love.”

“This movie, this musical, just the whole journey of this piece has been a remarkable experience,” says Bareilles. “What I love is that after all this time, we’ve ended up where we’re supposed to be. We were always just like the little engine that could.”

She continues, “This movie was very handmade. We were all hands on deck for this, and it really was an extraordinary experience. I’m so proud of it, and I’m glad that it’s captured forever and that a wider audience is going to get to experience what happened on stage on Broadway.”

Sara Bareilles attends the The American Heart Association’s Red Dress Collection Concert 2025 on Jan. 30, 2025 in New York City.Astrid Stawiarz/Getty

Astrid Stawiarz/Getty

Four Tony nominations followed, including a best original score nod for Bareilles.

Bareilles stepped into the role of Jenna for a limited engagement on Broadway in 2017 and then returned in 2018 and 2019. She made her West End debut as a replacement in the role in London in January 2020 with the lateGavin Creel, and then reprised the character in its 2021 Broadway re-staging tocelebrate the theaters reopeningafter the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sara Bareilles and Drew Gehling in ‘Waitress: The Musical’.HBO Max

Needless to say,Waitresshas played a huge role in Bareilles' life.

Going back to the beginning, the two-time Grammy winner says she was “a novice in terms of being a musical theater artist” when she first started working on the production. “I had some anticipatory feelings that it was going to feel really redundant and really boring really quickly,” she shares.

She couldn’t have been more wrong. “One of the things I learned early is just how facile the experience is and how different it is from show to show. Even when doing the same show two times in a day, both shows can feel very different from each other.”

“It’s what I love about theater,” she continues, “and that’s why I love the effort to capture that and bring it to a wider audience because only so many people can fit in those four walls.”

As for returning to play Jenna on Broadway and in the movie, theGirls5evastar tells PEOPLE that it was a “really emotional” experience, particularly because of its timing after the pandemic.

“To stand in a room with a lot of people, to not have a mask on, to be telling an emotional story and to be making people laugh — all of those things that we take for granted in our jobs,” the singer says. “Even just getting to go to work in a building with people that you weren’t in a pod with at that time, when we filmed this, it was really a remarkable thing.”

Sara Bareilles returns to Broadway’s ‘Waitress’ starring with Jason Mraz at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on Jan. 16, 2018 in New York City.Getty Images

Getty Images

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Filming occurred over four days, Bareilles explaining to PEOPLE that they recorded portions with and without audiences. Her favorite memory from the filming process involved coming back together with castmates Charity Angél Dawson and Caitlin Houlahan, who both starred in the original production.

She recalls her time on stage with the other two actresses, saying she enjoyed “getting to just feel joyful and laughing with my friends.”

The 2021 production also saw Bareilles sharing the stage with herreal-life partner Joe Tippett, who played the role of Jenna’s abusive husband Earl in the show’s pre-Broadway run and reprised the character in other productions. “This project also brought me my future husband, which is really a beautiful thing too,” she says. “I love this cast. They’re all dear friends, and I just feel like it’s almost like watching a family get together.”

(L-R) Charity Angél Dawson, Sara Bareilles and Caitlin Houlahan in ‘Waitress: The Musical’.HBO Max

The Grammy winner is ready for audiences to watch the filmed live production with their own loved ones on its Valentine’s Day release date.

“Something we learned as we watched how audiences reacted to the material over time, even just from the stage musical, is that this show is comfort food,” she explains. “People want to share it with their loved ones. Girlfriends want to share it with each other. Partners, of course, want to share it with each other. Mothers and daughters. It just feels like a real story about connection in a lot of different ways.”

“‘She Used to Be Mine’ was the first song that I wrote for the show,” she says, “and I did a lot of trying to invoke the spirit of Adrienne Shelly, who tragically was not with us to see the musical come to fruition.”

The other song, Bareilles shares, “is a song about having to trust that every right thing will find its right place, and that the only constant is change. And I think that feels really resonant with what I see happening in the world right now.”

source: people.com