Sara Bareilles reflects on the life-changing legacy of Waitress as musical tours the UK

Sara Bareilles has reflected on the enduring legacy of Waitress, as the hit musical continues its new UK and Ireland tour starring Carrie Hope Fletcher as Jenna.

The musical, adapted from Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 film, follows Jenna, a small-town waitress and gifted pie-maker trapped in an unhappy marriage and facing an unexpected pregnancy. With music and lyrics by Bareilles and a book by Jessie Nelson, the show blends humour, heartbreak and resilience through a story shaped by motherhood, friendship, abuse, infidelity, regret and the search for personal agency.

More than a decade after Waitress first arrived on Broadway, Bareilles says the show continues to shape her life in profound ways. Speaking to The Big Issue, she reflected on how the musical changed her artistically and personally, including introducing her to actor Joe Tippett, who played Earl in an early production and later became her husband.

The 2026 UK and Ireland tour stars Carrie Hope Fletcher at selected venues and is scheduled to play cities including Edinburgh, Dublin, Manchester, Wolverhampton, Cardiff, Southend, Oxford, Stoke-on-Trent, Blackpool, Leicester, Belfast, Bristol, Nottingham and Llandudno, with further casting varying across the tour.

Bareilles, best known to many listeners for her 2008 hit Love Song, approached Waitress from a very different creative position than her work as a recording artist. Rather than standing alone in the spotlight as a performer, writing for musical theatre required her to build songs in service of character, story and collaboration.

One of the show’s most recognisable songs, She Used to Be Mine, became a turning point in her understanding of the material. Bareilles has explained that she initially worried the emotional power of the number might be undermined by the show’s pie-making imagery, but early audience responses showed her that Jenna’s story carried a deep emotional resonance.

That response has continued across productions around the world. Waitress has been embraced by audiences not simply as a romantic musical comedy, but as a story about a woman recognising that the life she is living no longer fits the person she wants to become.

The show’s darker elements, particularly Jenna’s abusive marriage, are balanced by humour, warmth and the support of female friendship. Bareilles has said that this balance between light and shadow is central to the show’s impact, reflecting the complexity of real life rather than reducing its characters to simple categories.

Over the years, the musical has prompted strong responses from audience members who have recognised aspects of their own lives in Jenna’s journey. Bareilles has spoken about hearing from people who saw the show and were moved to reassess unhealthy relationships or reclaim a sense of independence.

While Bareilles did not originally plan to play Jenna herself, she eventually took on the role and later helped lead the show back to Broadway after the Covid shutdowns. That reopening carried symbolic weight for the theatre community, marking a step in Broadway’s return after an extended period of uncertainty and closure.

The composer is now working on another stage project, an adaptation of Meg Wolitzer’s novel The Interestings, which follows a group of teenagers who meet at a summer arts camp in the 1970s. But Waitress remains central to her creative identity.

Bareilles has said her relationship to Jenna’s story has changed over time. When she first wrote the musical, she connected strongly with Jenna’s sense of upheaval, having gone through major personal and professional changes herself, including moving from Los Angeles to New York and ending significant relationships. Now, she relates more closely to the character’s later sense of peace.

That evolution may be part of why Waitress has lasted. Its appeal is not only in its songs, humour or theatrical scent of fresh baking, but in the way it captures the messy process of becoming someone new.

As the UK and Ireland tour continues through 2026, Waitress returns to audiences as both a fan favourite and a reminder of Bareilles’ transition from pop singer-songwriter to musical theatre storyteller. More than a decade on, Jenna’s story of survival, friendship and self-renewal continues to find new meaning with each audience it reaches.

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