WAITRESS

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Now in cinemas, for just a few days:

https://www.waitressthemusical.movie/

Variety:  'Waitress: The Musical' Team Talks Coming to Theaters, Overcoming the Pandemic and Filming With a Real Baby

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I wouldn't by any means call myself a Sara Bareilles superfan: a single YouTube viewing of someone's full Waitress bootleg, and a single viewing of JCS Live, both several years ago now -- plus a few songs from her albums, none of which I now recall in detail -- constitutes pretty much my entire experience of her work.

But even that very limited exposure left an appealing impression (her casting as the Baker's Wife in Into The Woods struck me as smart, even more so after seeing the Tony clip, and was high among the reasons I'm sorry to have missed the show), so I'm curious what she'll do next.  And happy to be meeting a friend downtown later this evening to see Waitress onscreen.

Variety:  How 'Waitress' Changed the Way Sara Bareilles Writes Music, Even for Herself

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Waitress: The Musical is now available for preorder on Amazon Prime Video for fifteen bucks;  DVD & Blu-ray release to follow.

But I'm not finding an actual release date anywhere -- like, when can you actually watch it? -- for either digital or physical media; you'd think they'd want to make this available in time for Christmas, but if that's the aim, you might also think they'd have announced a date by now.

 

I did enjoy it in the movie theater last weekend, though it still reads to me as a promising freshman effort rather than an instant masterpiece.  Bareilles is winning in the title role, though I'd like to have also seen Jessie Mueller for comparison.  The production serves the piece very nicely indeed, and the filming seems to serve both better still.  It's also my "kind" of show: smallish, unit-set-ish, character-driven.  I wouldn't mind taking a crack at it someday, though Scott Pask's set strikes me as pretty hard to improve upon.

If I were a director, my one note would be to tone down just a bit of the cast's (and perhaps some of the choreography's) "Broadway" winsomeness.  They're a talented and charming bunch, but, speaking for myself, I'm not sure the piece wants quite this much sparkle.  It's not that I want it to be Bus Stop, but I could use just a touch less Pump Boys and Dinettes.