A.R.T. Musical Waitress Is Headed for Broadway

Jessie Mueller plays Jenna in Waitress. / Photo by Evgenia Eliseeva courtesy of the American Repertory Theater

American Repertory Theater’s latest musical Waitress, which just began previews at the Loeb Drama Center earlier this month, is already Broadway-bound. The show will open at the Brooks Atkinson Theater in New York City next April, with previews starting in March.

Waitress is based on a 2007 indie film that stars Kerri Russell as Jenna, a waitress and expert pie maker stuck in a small town and unhappy marriage who is offered an opportunity to escape through a baking contest in a nearby county. In the A.R.T. version, Jenna is played by Tony Award-winning actress Jessie Mueller.

The musical is staged by A.R.T. artistic director Diane Paulus, who in 2013 won a Tony Award for her revival of Pippin, a Broadway production that also originated at the Cambridge theater. Paulus collaborated on Waitress with Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter Sara Bareilles, who wrote the music and lyrics for the show.

The New York Times reports that Bareilles has relocated to Cambridge for the duration of the musical’s run at the A.R.T. “I’m […] a control freak, so there was no way this production was going to get up on its feet without me watchdogging every move,” she told the newspaper.

Waitress will run at the A.R.T. through September 27. In addition to the production, the A.R.T. is compiling a “Community Cookbook,” a collection of pie recipes contributed by patrons, staff, and fans, as well as a “Behind the Counter” oral history project featuring photographs and interviews from people working in diners and restaurants in the Greater Boston area.

Tickets for Waitress are available at americanrepertorytheater.org. Broadway tickets will go on sale soon at waitressonstage.com.