Sara Bareilles Opens Up About Doubts During Waitress: The Musical Writing Process

Sara Bareilles opened up about feeling deep insecurity while writing Waitress: The Musical.

The Love Song artist said stepping outside of her usual songwriting lane to create the 2016 production came with a different kind of pressure. The show debuted on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre and later transferred to London’s West End three years after its premiere.

She told The Big Issue: “I remember having so much insecurity in terms of writing this show.”

Sara, who released What's Inside: Songs From Waitress in November 2015, was responsible for adapting the original 2007 comedy drama. The story centers on a woman trapped in an abusive marriage in a small town who becomes pregnant while working at a diner.

The stage version kept the same core narrative and themes. When Sara wrote the standout ballad She Used To Be Mine, she worried that mentions of pie might come off unintentionally funny and take away from the emotional weight.

But she recalled: “I played the song and I could feel the reaction. No one was laughing. I was like, oh, there's a resonance in this story, Jenna's story, which became my story, which became whatever it becomes.

“That was a real moment of learning. Make something you love and share it with the hope that someone else might learn to love it too.

“I think the show does a really good job of balancing darkness and light.

“We are dealing with heavy subject matter, but the way life works is that it holds a lot in a little.

“Most things are complex and not black and white or one-dimensional.”

Sara said that over time, she has come to connect more with the hopeful ending of the show than she did during the writing process.

She explained: “One of the reasons I started writing Waitress was because I was in a moment of pretty extraordinary upheaval.

“I had just moved to New York after being in LA for 15 years, I had left a six-year relationship, a band relationship of 10 years, a manager relationship. I blew it all up.

“And so I felt like I really related to the experience Jenna is having, waking up inside of a life she doesn't quite recognise. Being like, how is this me?

“I related more to the messy part of her when I was writing the show. Now I relate more to the peaceful part of her.”

Sara married actor Joe Tippett, who portrayed Jenna’s husband Earl in the show’s 2016 world premiere at the American Repertory Theater, in October 2025.

She added: “Everything about my life has changed because of Waitress, artistically, personally — I married an Earl.

“I cannot believe how lucky we are that this show continues to reach audiences all over the world.”