This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:01] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, I feel really blessed that I was able to be a part of something like that, that I have learned since has really meant a lot to a lot of people. And it meant a lot to me, it meant a lot to me at the time, it continues to mean a lot to me and mean different things. And there's still things I'm unpacking from things I've learned in that process and the people I met and the people I've lost.

[0:23] Jessie Mueller: We lost Nick Cordero during the pandemic to COVID. And he was our Earl on Broadway. And, you know, it's, it's a very, there's a lot mixed up in the pie of Waitress, there really, really is.

[0:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome, everybody to A Musical Theatre Podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite musicals in theatre history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons, you can call me Jeff. Today we are discussing the musical Waitress, which was a listener request from Julia, Olivia, and Levi. Levi wrote,

[1:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Waitress came into my life at a particularly formative year, just as I needed a message of hope. It was my senior year of high school and some theater friends of mine had gone together to geek out over the 2016 Tony Awards, aka the Hamiltonies. When I saw Sara Bareilles and Jessie Mueller perform She Used to Be Mine on the telecast, I felt as if someone had taken all the yearning, grief and pain I had felt in my heart and put it to music.

[1:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I felt seen and validated in a way I had never been before. Though I have not endured anything near the immersive trials and personal tragedies of Waitress's lead protagonist Jenna, her fight towards healing, empowerment and self-love has inspired and fueled me to hope and endure as I continue to embark on my own journey of healing and recovery after having survived an abusive and toxic childhood.

[2:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: This musical, as well as the film on which it is based, has been such a light to me ever since it found me almost six years ago, and as I grow older, my love for it has only continued to deepen. I will forever be grateful to Adrienne Shelley, Jessie Nilsen, Sara Bareilles, Diane Paulus, Lauren Latarro, and the rest of the incredible creative team behind this beautiful piece of theater. Waitress matters to me.

[2:26] Jessie Mueller: Holy cow, Levi! Such a beautiful email. And to be totally honest, I feel like we're the same human being. Like, that's why I tuned into the Tony Awards every year when I was younger. It's because I think subconsciously I knew I'd see something that would help me understand myself. So, I'm thrilled to be bringing this episode, not only to you, but to all the listeners and not just with any guest.

[2:51] Jessie Mueller: Y'all, she's Jenna. She's also a Tony winner for Beautiful and is the woman who I believe has yet to meet a song she couldn't sing. She can currently be heard on the studio cast recording of a new musical called My Heart Says Go. Everyone, please welcome the incredible Jessie Mueller.

[3:09] Jessie Mueller: Wow. Yay! That was my crowd sound. Yeah, no, that was actually really great foley. I'm highly impressed. It was great. Hey, you know what I mean? I've got all kinds of tools here. I can give you a thunder sheet. No, just kidding. Thunder sheet. The little tap shoes. Yeah, tiki-tiki-tiki. I'm going along the hallway. Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck.

[3:31] Jessie Mueller: Was that not like the coolest email ever? That's beautiful. Levi, thank you for sharing that. That's so sweet. I mean, I think that's why I got into theater once upon a time. I was in the audience and I felt something intense and I thought, you know, how am I feeling with this character's feeling? I've never been in this situation. I've never done this thing. I don't have their given circumstances.

[3:57] Jessie Mueller: But then I thought, gosh, if I could do that for somebody else, maybe that would be a really worthwhile thing. So to hear that sort of feedback is very powerful. It's very powerful and humbling, too. I think this show we're talking about, we're talking about Waitress, I think it had that sort of effect on a lot of people. I think it had that sort of effect on a lot of us working on it, to be honest.

[4:19] Jessie Mueller: I think that's one of the reasons a lot of us were drawn to it. We're all working through things. We're always working through our own traumas, be they big or small. It's all relative, right? And I think that was what was so powerful and appealing to me about the original film.

[4:41] Jessie Mueller: You know, this sort of seemingly ordinary person going through these extraordinary circumstances and extraordinary feelings and feeling so alone in that and then realizing that they're not alone and they can make their way through something difficult.

[5:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. Amen. And thank you all for listening to the episode. No, but truly, that really resonates with me. And then to add to it the meditation or the metaphor of baking, which is something that you can either do alone or can be the foundation of some of your most treasured childhood memories.

[5:28] Jessie Mueller: I used to bake with my mom. I mean, that was another one of the things about the piece that appealed to me. I was like, I don't know, there's just something about this that I get. There's something about this that my mom baked. She knew it brought joy to people. I think food can be an amazing way to bring people together. She thought baking brought joy. I think she would bake sometimes when she was upset because she'd want to make something. She'd want to do something with those feelings.

[5:52] Jessie Mueller: Something that makes sense, too. If I put this together and this together and this together, I'm going to get this.

[5:59] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, let me make order out of chaos. Let me grab for control where I can when the other things in my life are out of control. And I think that's certainly what the protagonist character in Waitress Jenna, that's what she's doing. She has so little, she feels she has so little control elsewhere in her life. But right when she's in the kitchen, she can make sense of something. She can make order out of something. Yeah, when she's making pie, she's the ultimate creator.

[6:24] Jessie Mueller: I think I had a similar childhood as you in that where I come from, you say I love you by making someone cookies. I even remember this one time where it was after church and we were all sitting around the dinner table eating and trash talking. I'm pretty sure I was the instigator of it all because there were people at church that I was upset with.

[6:55] Jessie Mueller: And my mom was like, all right, that's it. You all are going to pick one family in our church that you can't stand and we're going to take them cookies tonight. And so we made cookies for them. And it was like it was the kind of this backward compliment and that is like, well, I guess we're giving them cookies because we don't like them.

[7:13] Jessie Mueller: But you actually had to in her great wisdom, you had to do something for someone. And in the doing of it, you know, the anger kind of goes out of your body, you know, instead of being stuck in there.

[7:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, she flipped it around on you, didn't she?

[7:29] Jessie Mueller: She showed it. And I mean, nothing beats a warm chocolate chip cookie. But the more important question, are you a cake or a pie person or do you not even get to consider this at this point?

[7:41] Jessie Mueller: Oh, you know what? I really like both. Funnily enough, it was during working on the show Waitress that I found out I had a gluten intolerance.

[7:50] Jessie Mueller: Oh, shoot. Just covered in flour for years.

[7:55] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And at one point, our brilliant props guy, Chris Pantuso, I came up to him as I was figuring this out of my life. I said, Okay, so I think I found out I had a gluten intolerance. Could we maybe try gluten free flour? Because we were literally throwing flour in the air.

[8:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[8:11] Jessie Mueller: And I remember during the process and during tech and stuff, we tried all different kinds of things to see what would look best, what would look best in the lighting. And Levi mentioned Diane Paulus, our director, and she was very specific about it. And funnily enough, the best thing, what looked the best was actual flour. You know, not all these like stage magic things.

[8:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[8:28] Jessie Mueller: We were throwing flour in the air. As we were singing notes. So yes, Chris was like, Yeah, let me buy a little bit. And let's see how it goes. And it was so much better. I mean, at that point, I'd cut it out. I started cutting it out of my diet. And then then it was gluten free flour on the stage. I feel like someone told me from that point on. It's been gluten free flour, like it just went into the show then.

[8:52] Jessie Mueller: I can't, I can't attest to the fact of that. But I did hear that. So yeah, I don't get to indulge a lot in cakes or pies. Sometimes cakes are easier, I have to say with gluten free baking to get but I've made a pretty good gluten free pie crust.

[9:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow. That's impressive.

[9:08] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, usually, usually around Thanksgiving, I usually make a pumpkin pie and I'll make it and I'll attempt to crust again. And it's I mean, it's it's hearty. It's not like you're light and flaky, but it's, it's still good. It's still delicious. They've come up with all kinds of things that that can make it work.

[9:26] Jessie Mueller: Pies just delicious. Like I am a pie person. I prefer a pie on my birthday type thing.

[9:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Where did you grow up? Like what part of the country?

[9:34] Jessie Mueller: Utah.

[9:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Utah. Okay. And I don't know what it's like in Utah. But like I grew up in the Midwest pies. I mean, yes, we have our fruit and berry pies. But like the cream pie is really big in the Midwest.

[9:44] Jessie Mueller: Get a banana cream.

[9:46] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when I saw the movie Waitress and in the original film that Adrienne Shelley directed, it's like, there were all these amazing sort of, or almost like, like aerial shots of her making the pies as Jenna is describing them. And I just loved those to me, you know, all those like the, the cream and the, the moussiness like to me that I love that.

[10:10] Jessie Mueller: The texture is so intoxicating to see it like pour into the pie crust.

[10:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, yeah. And the colors and I loved all that.

[10:18] Jessie Mueller: Agreed. Once I made a Mayan chocolate pie. And so it was like a chocolate cream pie, but then it had a little bit of cayenne pepper.

[10:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, I was gonna say had a little spice in it. That sounds delicious.

[10:30] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, fantastic.

[10:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And we've segued into just talking about our favorite desserts.

[10:35] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, but like, come on, if not on the Waitress episode, then when on earth are we going to do it?

[10:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, this is our chance.

[10:41] Jessie Mueller: Let's talk about the movie, though. When did you see it? I first saw it when I moved to Los Angeles and kind of the Hello, Keri Russell fan from the Mickey Mouse Club days.

[10:52] Jessie Mueller: Oh, my gosh, that's right.

[10:53] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, yeah.

[10:54] Jessie Mueller: Oh, wow. I'd completely forgotten that. I was such a Mickey Mouse Club fan. I always forget that she was in that, that group.

[11:01] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, her and Tony Luca, man. They were like the heartthrobs.

[11:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, that's right. I always remember like Justin and Brittany and but I forgot that Keri was there too.

[11:10] Jessie Mueller: Of course, and Christina.

[11:11] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, and Christina, yeah.

[11:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So I I knew that I was going to see it because of her. But then there was also all of this talk in in L.A. about Adrienne Shelley.

[11:21] Jessie Mueller: I mean, because she's in the movie. She directed the movie. She's such a fantastic presence and has such a quirky sensibility about her.

[11:29] Jessie Mueller: And then she had tragically died and we were everybody had said that it was that it was a suicide. And then it ended up years and years later. Right. Not being a suicide.

[11:43] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. You know what? I don't remember the specifics of the timeline, but her husband at the time, Andy Ostroi, who was very instrumental in the creation of the musical.

[11:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, cool.

[11:54] Jessie Mueller: And making that happen. He was one of the people that was like, this couldn't be a suicide. This couldn't be a suicide.

[12:00] Jessie Mueller: And and they found out later, tragically, that she was she was murdered. And there's a brilliant there's a brilliant film, actually, that that Andy created.

[12:09] Jessie Mueller: And I believe it's called Adrienne. I'll have to look it up or we can fact check this. But and it was released first, I think, on HBO.

[12:15] Jessie Mueller: But it's a beautiful documentary that he created really about her life. And it does cover her unfortunate passing.

[12:23] Jessie Mueller: But what he really wanted to he just really wanted people to feel like they knew her. He wanted more people to know her and know her spirit and know her legacy and more about the work she created.

[12:37] Jessie Mueller: And but yeah, he just knew in his heart that I mean, they had just had their daughter. She was two years old, I think, Sophie.

[12:45] Jessie Mueller: And so he was like, No, this just doesn't make sense. This doesn't make sense. And in the documentary, he he sort of shows like how and I forget the name of the detective that he finally he just like kept coming back to the police and saying, I need you to look further into this.

[13:00] Jessie Mueller: I need you to look further into this something is not lining up for me. And then they did finally find out what actually happened. Yeah, unfortunately, it was a construction worker that was working in the building.

[13:11] Jessie Mueller: And he had, I believe, initially gone up there to, to rob her. And it like went wrong. And he ended up taking her life. And it's a really intense, beautiful film that Andy created that that just I mean, it covers a breadth of things, but also his coming to grips with her death and how he explained it to their young daughter.

[13:29] Jessie Mueller: at the time. And yeah, so if you haven't seen that yet, I would definitely check it out. Wow, definitely check it out.

[13:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Did you see the movie though? Like where you I had seen the movie. I think I saw it in the theaters. Did you really? That's amazing. I think I saw it in the theaters and or I saw it when it was I mean, back in the days when people got DVDs from like Netflix or blockbuster.

[13:56] Jessie Mueller: It was probably blockbuster at that time. Yeah, I know I'm dating myself. But what I remember too is seeing the previews for the film. I think I remember seeing a preview for the film when I was went to go see another movie and I can't remember what that movie was. But I'm really being struck by I think you use the word quirky, the kind of quirkiness of it, the color of it, the music that was used in the film, it just sort of had this

[15:22] Jessie Mueller: I think we also felt like we had this other level of something to lift up in continuing that legacy of Adrian's. So, and that was a really special thing, you know, on tough days, you could be like, "We're doing it for Adrian. This is a bigger purpose. Yeah, we're doing this for Adrian." So like suck it up, have your espresso, and like we're doing it again. It's a two-show day. Let's do it for Adrian.

[16:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's so interesting that you say that she was a fan of musicals because I get that from the movie, not only from the color and the style and the rhythm of it, but the other big memory I have of seeing the film is that the song at the end was stuck in my brain. Like it had an original song that they sing at the end, right?

[16:40] Jessie Mueller: That's right. I'm trying to remember. Yep, and I make a pie with a heart in the middle.

[16:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, so cute. Yeah, that's right. I'd forgotten about that. And the girl, Jenna's daughter in the movie is Sophie. That's Adrian's daughter. I don't know if you knew that, but yeah.

[16:55] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's so sweet. I want to go watch this movie. I haven't.

[17:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So yeah, she walks down, Carrie walks down the road with Sophie. Oh my gosh, I can't even handle this. That is so special. So all of those ingredients, if you will, put into this movie, when I heard that it was being turned into a musical, I was like, yeah, no-brainer. This is a great idea. When I heard that Sara Bareilles was doing it, I was even more excited.

[17:26] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, 'cause like huge fan. Once again, moved to LA, all of my UCLA friends were talking about Sara Bareilles.

[17:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: When do you remember discovering her? Was it like "Love Song"?

[17:40] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I assume it was. Yeah, it was probably that song having heard it on the radio.

[17:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, it was. I mean, I don't know if the kids listening remember the radio, but it's sort of like it was sort of rest girl, it was sort of like streaming, but it happened live and you could listen to it in your automobile in your Model T Ford. But no, yeah, it would have been "Love Song" and then that whole album, and then I had just become a fan. I was like, I can't remember when I was like, was that me that high school for me? I forget, but yeah, I just sort of fell in love with her voice, of course, but her writing style to me, I think she's such a storyteller.

[18:22] Jessie Mueller: And I think looking back now, it makes total sense that she would be so brilliant at creating a musical just because of the rich storytelling in her songs. But I think that one of the things that just sort of blew me away and impressed me so much in being involved in the process of her creating this musical with Jesse Nelson, who wrote the book, was that to me she got so inside the character's point of view that she was writing from.

[18:45] Jessie Mueller: And I think honestly, that's something that's rare. The great musical theater writers do that, but not everybody does. To me, that's sometimes what separates a great musical from a not-so-great musical is she really understood that character's point of view in the lyric, even in the style of the song, the sort of genre that she might have been alluding to. You know, each character sort of had a different sound, obviously had a different voicing for voice parts and things, but I think her detail work on that was what really kind of blew me away. I was like, how do you know how to do this so well? It's your first musical you ever wrote. But again, I think it's because she is a musical theater fan. She's a fan of the form. She loves it. She's fascinated by it.

[19:37] Jessie Mueller: I mean, she wanted, Sara wanted to be involved in the process, and I think that's very cool. Sometimes you work on something new and the writer can't be there all the time or they're not as interested in being part of the process. Their process is a little more solo, so they go off and do their work and then they let people, you know, cast creatives do their thing in the room and they come back here and there, but she was really game to like be in the room. She was in the room almost every day and was really a part of it from the get-go.

[20:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, that's so cool.

[20:12] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, it was cool. She's such an empathic writer that processing it myself, I think it is kind of the empathy that she's able to tap into with her songs. I remember, yes, yeah, like I don't know if you ever get this way after a show, but definitely in my 20s, I would get done with the performance and I'd almost feel blue because like it's so vulnerable that and then like you're driving home by yourself and you're like, "I'm all by myself in this open heart of a feeling," and I'd always want to put on "Gravity." Always, always. And I think it's because she was meeting me where I was, which was this open vulnerable place.

[20:51] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, you know, she's one of those writers that listening to her, you know, in my early 20s and things like that too, I felt like, how does she know? How does she know what I'm feeling? How can she, how it felt like she was writing what I was feeling.

[21:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And I didn't mean to cut you off, but—

[21:06] Jessie Mueller: No, no, I had that same sort of experience. It's like, how can—and I think in good theater, that's when it's great, right? Is when you go and you watch a story that maybe has you think has nothing to do with you, and all of a sudden you're empathizing with those people and you're like, whoa, how can that person that's so different from me—and sometimes it's so similar, sometimes that's your experience, but it's like, but I've never met this person. I don't live in this small town and wherever, I don't work in a pie shop, but how do they know what I'm feeling? How does this make me feel less alone? Because I feel seen, because I feel like I'm not the only one going through this. That's, you know, that's the best of the best.

[21:49] Jessie Mueller: I think in preparation for this episode, I tracked down a bootleg. I won't report you to the authorities.

[21:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Thank you very much.

[21:59] Jessie Mueller: And to listen to a New York audience experience "Waitress" is fascinating to me for this reason because I feel like everybody—I won't say that they're quiet at the beginning, but there is a point in the show when everything really starts cooking and they lock in, and it just keeps going and going and going and going. And it's because of what you're talking about. It's about connecting to these characters, and I can imagine like maybe a New York audience shows up to this diner in the South and it's like—

[22:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But then all of a sudden—

[22:39] Jessie Mueller: They're in it before and they don't even know it, that they're in it, and it's really fun to hear that.

[22:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And that's so interesting. Do you feel like you know where at that point was? I'm just curious.

[22:48] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, I think it's the scene right before Augie's song.

[22:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I could see that because I think they've loved the waitresses, and then to see a new character come in and to see like the dynamic of all of that new high entropy type situation just like fuels the rest of the show.

[23:07] Jessie Mueller: Right, and to see a new character come in who so loves one of the characters that so loves Dawn, that the audience has totally fallen for it by that point.

[23:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Amen.

[23:21] Jessie Mueller: And you're so in her court as well because you so want her—you see all the things about her that are so lovable that she doesn't see in herself.

[23:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Absolutely. I mean, I see someone else see that. That sort of applies to almost every character in the show, but yeah, you see someone else recognize it before Dawn, the character does, and so the audience is just—it's like a version of the audience feeling smart because they see it before those two do about like, "You guys should be together. You're perfect. You're perfect."

[23:49] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, that's always kind of thrilling for an audience, I think.

[23:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, audiences love matchmaking.

[24:00] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, they love to be the matchmaker, right?

[24:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: They do, they do. It's why I love teenagers going to the theater. I know that they can be loud and talk through it and like go every time somebody kisses, but like they're in it. They love it. I love a student matinee. There's just nothing like it because you know they're not gonna lie to you.

[24:18] Jessie Mueller: They're not gonna lie to you.

[24:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So they couldn't if they tried. If they're not interested, like you will know, and if they're in it, they're going to be vocal about it, and they will let you know if they're with you or not with you, and it's really informative.

[24:29] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, it's fascinating. Sometimes distracting, but usually just informing acting.

[24:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, it's what's one man a—you're fine.

[24:37] Jessie Mueller: So, let's go back in time now to what is it, 2013? Is that when "Beautiful" happens?

[24:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: 2014 maybe?

[24:47] Jessie Mueller: 2014, I think. It's this little show called "Beautiful."

[24:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You're like a superstar, rockstar playing the piano, win every single award ever, right?

[24:59] Jessie Mueller: And we didn't know it was anything. I mean, we knew the music was good, and we were working on this Doug—the gold dug, sweet Doug McGrath—who we also lost, was that last year? Two years ago at this point? You know, was working so hard on the script and crafting it and trying to get the journey of it right.

[25:19] Jessie Mueller: But yeah, no, I mean in the beginning we were like, well, we think we have something, and we think we have people that the audience can relate to. We know they're gonna love the songs, and if we can have them love the characters as well, and the characters love each other. And if we can—that was a funny one because I feel like anytime we started to drift from what actually happened, from sort of like walking the line of the real reality of what these people were going through and the sort of situational things that happened, sometimes the team would be like, "Well, maybe we should take this artistic liberty and have this happen." And it's like it wouldn't work as well.

[25:59] Jessie Mueller: And we went back to like the historical things that actually went down. That's what was more dramatically satisfying, which is really interesting and kind of unusual to be on.

[26:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, I think it is kind of unusual. You often think you have to, I don't know, you have to make it stage-worthy, but honestly, like especially those sort of four main characters in the Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Cynthia Weil, and Barry Mann, like just everything that they went through, it was highly dramatic.

[26:25] Jessie Mueller: So after that show, like what was your game plan? I'm—

[26:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Besides like maybe take a nap?

[26:31] Jessie Mueller: I was really excited about that. Were there discussions in the management team of like, "Let's go make some real money in sitcoms," you know, like what?

[26:40] Jessie Mueller: You know what? I would say the funny thing about that is I don't think I was totally conscious of that. But the first thing that popped into my mind is when you're doing theater, when you're on an eight-show week schedule, there's not a lot of time to audition. There's not a lot of time to go for meetings. I mean, I did some of that, but I actually knew toward the end of "Beautiful" that I was going to be working on "Waitress," and they had a town—

[27:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, they had an out-of-town tryout basically locked in at ART in Cambridge. So I knew that that's what I was going to do next.

[27:19] Jessie Mueller: I mean, we didn't know where it would go from there, but so I was still sort of locking myself into another theater schedule. So, well if indeed, right, if TV had come a call in, I wouldn't have been able to work that schedule out anyway. But that wasn't—by that point, I had actually been approached earlier about an earlier workshop for "Waitress," and that was the first time I heard any of the music. I got sent demos of Sara's and was blown away.

[27:45] Jessie Mueller: And so that was even earlier than, yeah, that was when I was doing "Beautiful." That was when I was doing "Beautiful" and early on during the run of "Beautiful," and I did it for, well, with the out-of-town tryout, I don't know, a year and a half, close to two years, maybe. I forget, but I just wanted to do it. Well, my heart was like—we were talking about this other project I just worked on, this studio recording of this really amazing, exciting show called "My Heart Says Go," and I think that's—I've been thinking about that. It's like, oh yes, my heart said go. I listened to "Waitress," and my heart said go, go do that. And I don't always have that reaction to things. Sometimes I—it's—that was a really, really strong one. I have—I do remember that quite vividly. I remember like where I was in my apartment listening to it and just being like, what? I think I was crying one of the first.

[28:44] Jessie Mueller: She used to be mine and maybe everything changes. Well, I can't remember now, but I know she used to be mine was there and I was just like, what? And it was Sara singing them with a, you know, at a piano. It was just incredible. And so the first time they reached out, I was, and I looked at the material, I was like, dang it. I really want to do this. I can't do it right now because I was doing Beautiful and I just knew that I couldn't handle both. I couldn't do both at the same time. There just wasn't enough for me to go around and the show at night was quite demanding. And thank God they came around again and asked me to be a part of it again. I think it was right near the end of my run in Beautiful and they were doing a workshop and then wanted to do a little bit of a presentation and I said yes that time because I felt like I couldn't let it go twice and because I just really, really wanted to be a part of it.

[29:38] Jessie Mueller: So, I don't know if you've heard of, have you heard of the musical Runaways?

[29:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I don't think I have.

[29:46] Jessie Mueller: Okay, so it's this musical I want to say from the 70s. Written by the only all-female creative team.

[29:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Really? No, I don't know.

[29:57] Jessie Mueller: And by team, I mean one person wrote it, directed it, choreographed it, like everything was hers. And that was the last time that an all-female creative team had been on Broadway until Waitress. So it was in the 70s. She got nominated for Best Musical and Best Score and Best Director, you know what I mean? Because she did everything herself and it was about these children who are like living on the streets. It was kind of a vignette sort of working type structure. Elizabeth Swados is her name. Embarrassing that it's happened so few times, but shout out to Waitress for also being able to make that claim because music and lyrics by the amazing Sara Bareilles, directed by the amazing Diane Paulus, who of course had just become kind of a visionary thanks to Pippin and many other productions. And Jesse Nelson, Corinna Corinna, I mean, right?

[30:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[30:57] Jessie Mueller: And then Lauren Lataro for choreography and we also had a female music director, Nadia de Gelen Ardo. Wow. Yeah, that's so cool. Yep, and I feel it because this is the same season as, as I mentioned in his email about the Hamiltonese. This was the same year as Hamilton. And so like that made me laugh because I called it the Hamiltons, but the Hamiltonese is much more clever, much more cleverly back. But it's true and I felt like going into that season it was giving a Chorus Line type vibes where, you know, Chorus Line was this huge success in Chicago, came out the same season and didn't really get its full love until it was revived, right, in the 90s many, many years later. So I kind of almost had this expectation for any other show that was going to be in that season. But here comes this musical that is about, sounds mean to say ordinary people, right?

[32:01] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, but I feel you. They are, they're sort of blue-collar. They're supposed to be your everyman, woman, them, I think is what was kind of the gist of the bedrock of the story. They're not the people who wrote the Declaration of Independence. They are people who run a diner in the South, right? They're not fancy, they're not glamorous. They're the people you would pass by in the grocery store and never notice. That's sort of the idea, I think. And yeah, I think because of this team and because of what you all created, it felt so singular. It felt very special compared maybe even if I want to bring Hamilton into it compared to Hamilton. And so how amazing that in this season that was supposed to be dominated by one show, Waitress emerges as a big old hit and runs for like 1,200 performances.

Like that's incredibly fortunate, really fortunate. Especially now, you know, since the pandemic, I think theater is still finding its way forward as many of us are. You know, it's changed things dramatically.

[33:04] Jessie Mueller: But that's interesting you bring up the Hamilton thing too because I think in some ways it just, it put this energy out into the air and into the world at that point and people got really excited about musicals again.

[33:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Musicals.

[33:24] Jessie Mueller: And I think that Waitress benefited from that.

[33:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Mmm, you know, that's nice to hear. I love that.

[33:33] Jessie Mueller: I think so. And you know, in the fact that we had Sara Bareilles and she was sort of coming from the pop world, but she obviously loved the musical theater form so much. I think there was just sort of this swirl of all this exciting stuff happening. But I think I never felt like Hamilton took away from it. I only felt like we sort of benefited from the buzz that it was creating and we were so different and it was really hard to get a ticket to Hamilton. So maybe a lot of people bought tickets to Waitress.

[34:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[34:02] Jessie Mueller: You know, do you love history or do you love pie? I mean, depending on the evening, I'll choose pie.

[34:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: 100%. I mean, but you know, sometimes you want history, but no, no, I really do think that it was like a mutually beneficial relationship.

[34:19] Jessie Mueller: That's great. That's great because I maybe I was coming at it from a competition place and it's nice to know that it's a little bit more, what's the word?

[34:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Synchronous?

[34:29] Jessie Mueller: What is it when they, something feeds each other?

[34:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: They were, oh yes, a symbiotic.

[34:36] Jessie Mueller: Symbiotic, I can't believe I thought of that word. Well, like the worst Scrabble player in the land. So Waitress is a big old hit. How long were you with the show? Do you remember a year, a year on Broadway, a year, your six months on Broadway, something like that?

[34:50] Jessie Mueller: Well, maybe it was a year, a year on Broadway and then I had done the run at ART as well.

[34:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow. Yeah, huge. So can we go through a few of the beats in the show together to beat it out?

[35:06] Jessie Mueller: Let's be, what do we start? Of course, with, well, okay, so start upstage center. There's two rolling carts.

[35:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The blocking the audience's view from—

[35:18] Jessie Mueller: No, I don't remember how it starts. Sorry. Go ahead.

[35:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly, right? I think you are right to reveal Miss Jenna.

[35:26] Jessie Mueller: Covered in flour.

[35:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[35:33] Jessie Mueller: Hutcherson.

[35:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Hunterson. My gosh, my bad. I already started to poorly.

[35:41] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, I remembered her last name.

[35:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, that's awesome. Sara Bareilles comes from—

[35:45] Jessie Mueller: Many people may not know an acapella background.

[35:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's true too.

[35:51] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, and I hear that like texture all throughout the score. Like I knew the characters from the film, but I didn't realize until I saw Waitress that there's an ensemble.

[35:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, sure. Sure.

[35:59] Jessie Mueller: What I mean? And a lot of voices always kind of informing everything. Yep, but you're right. It's sort of blended in too. I didn't even mean to use like a culinary analogy, but it really, it really is blended in to the texture, the texture of the sort of audio scope of the musical. And I think she, she was really, and the whole team and Nadia, our music director, I remember them talking a lot about it when we were recording the album, which hilariously on Broadway you usually do like on your day off right after opening or something. It's insane. But they really wanted it. Sara wanted to find the blend between like a great pop record and a musical. Like she didn't necessarily want it to sound, she wanted to have the texture and the complexity, I think, of a pop record as well.

[36:47] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, so she wanted it to kind of, I think it's a cool album even now for to listen to for me. It's funny, it'll like pop up because it's, you know, it's like on my phone, it's in my iTunes somewhere. It'll, a song will pop up every once in a while and sometimes, especially if it's myself and my, it'll be like, oh God, I don't want to, but things will pop up from the show and I will sit there and listen to it because I just, it's just a really well-produced album. I think they did a really great job of blending sort of what you see on stage but also making it really a really satisfying experience audially.

[37:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[37:24] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, there's so much ear candy.

[37:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: One.

[37:29] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, yeah, there totally is, there totally is. And the staging of the musical I think complements that very well and that there's a lot of movement. There are a lot of people helping in the baking of everything. It feels communal.

[37:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[37:42] Jessie Mueller: But at the center of all of that is Jenna. So how would you describe her?

[37:46] Jessie Mueller: Character? Yeah, like who is this woman? She is, I mean, Sara did it. She's messy, but she's kind. She's lonely most of the time. There's other ones. I'm trying to think of the rest of the lyrics. I know that she's all this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie. I think she's really scared of the messy parts of herself. She's scared to look at them. She's scared to acknowledge them. She has gone through trauma in her life. She's very triggered by things and I think she has had some, has absorbed some misinformation about what love looks like and it was maybe modeled some of that consciously or subconsciously, most likely unconsciously from, let's say, her mother. And so she's had a little bit, I think, of a mixed-up idea of what love looks like.

So she has gone, she has been sort of drawn to maybe not what is healthiest for her, but what is familiar, certainly, I think in her marriage. And then I think she has spent a lot of time trying to be good, trying to be kind, trying to be, which is such a beautiful thing. People, I, there's references in the, it was in the original film as well, the Queen of kindness and goodness, I think they say about the character. Don't I think Dawn references that because Jenna, the Queen of kindness and goodness, I think is the line. But I think Jenna is a character. She's gone so far on that side of the spectrum and maybe thinks that that's what people expect from her. So she has a really hard time acknowledging anything dark, anything negative, anything hurtful.

So she kind of pushes it down and she uses her baking to work through it, but she has a, life is all the things. Life is all the parts, the good, the bad, the messy, the clean, the tidy. And if you don't acknowledge all those things, like you'll get tripped up. And then that's where I think we have that sort of breaking point at the end, about three-quarters away through the show. That's where you get, she used to be mine and all of a sudden she's like, she's starting to crack.

[39:43] Jessie Mueller: But I think the thing that I loved about her was that she was such a complex character. It's one of the things that drew me to the film. Here's this seemingly put-together person who is sweet and kind and then she does quote-unquote bad things. She has an affair. She cheats on her husband. She puts up with her and it puts up with all these things, self-sacrifices for him, all these things where normally looking at a piece of art or theater or film, whatever it is, you wouldn't necessarily root for a character to do these things. But the audience gets behind her because they love her so much and they just want her to experience what she feels like she needs to experience to learn her lessons and they really take that ride with her.

And that was so appealing to me to see. And it's sort of, we were talking about, it's sort of a cast of like your sort of quote-unquote normal people, but it's also a cast of very flawed people, very non-perfect characters. There is something about everybody that is flawed and I think that's the sort of thing that enables the audience to see themselves in these characters and empathize with them in the midst of these decisions they make and the things that they go through.

[41:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Totally agree. You know, if I've learned anything from about trauma is that I think that we, or I know that we find ways to deal with it.

[41:18] Jessie Mueller: Yeah.

[41:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And then there's a point, and there might be several points in your life when those things stop working.

[41:30] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, yes, yes.

[41:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And that gets messy.

[41:34] Jessie Mueller: Oh, yeah. Yeah, but it also, I think like you said, cracks you open in order to be healed.

[41:40] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, and I see that in this character. I see her realizing what she actually has to work on because up until now the patience and the kindness, like you said, as admirable as they are, are only going to take her so far before she also has to be self-empowered.

[41:58] Jessie Mueller: Right? And the cool thing is like she takes the patience and the kindness with her, but she just empowers it with other things, exactly learns, right? I think the character learns. This sounds grandiose, but who gets to have that bestowed on them? Who deserves, who earned, who has earned that? Yeah, who gets to have the best parts of her and who maybe doesn't deserve that from her anymore?

[42:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Hmm.

[42:23] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, amazing. Other people who work with her at the diner, Becky.

[42:27] Jessie Mueller: Becky is definitely older than Jenna, right?

[42:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Sure, maybe not more wiser.

[42:33] Jessie Mueller: I think she's wiser. She's more worldwide. She's seen more things. She's farther on her journey, she's farther on her journey than Jenna, I would say. She's also married. It's right, is her husband—

[42:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: An invalid, is that the right—

[42:53] Jessie Mueller: I believe that's the way they describe it in the show, is that he—

[42:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Sure, yeah.

[42:57] Jessie Mueller: Don has something like, and Becky's husband is an invalid and your husband, Jenna, he's just terrible or something. There was some line about that.

[43:05] Jessie Mueller: But yeah, you get.

[43:06] Jessie Mueller: You don't get a whole, you get sort of a watercolor wash of like Becky's sort of home life. But yeah, that she does love her husband, and she's been taking care of her husband for a while. And he's maybe not in the best of health. And so she's his main caretaker. And then that takes a lot out of Becky like that. That is a role that requires quite a lot from someone. Exhausting. Yeah. And then we also have, we also have Dawn. Our sweet Dawn. Sweet Dawn. Oh my gosh, once again, played by Adrian Shelley in the film. Just like sweet as pie. Also, a Virgo. I'm trying to think of what I think she does. Yeah, I mean, she's, to me, she's like, she's an awesome nerd. Yeah, she loves what she loves. And she can focus on it so intently.

And she's so smart. She's so intelligent. Um, and she's a really good, she's very observant, too. I mean, she's sort of, she's sort of detail oriented, very detail oriented. And she sees what's going on with everybody before anybody else notices it usually. Love that. I love that. Yeah. So these are the three main characters at the diner that is run by a guy named Carl.

[44:18] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, Carl. Well, Cal, excuse me. Cal. Cal is the, yeah, Cal's the chef. Cal's the, oh, he's, is he just the chef? I thought he was like the manager or something. Yeah, I guess he manages things. And then it's Joe's diner. Joe owns the diner.

[44:32] Jessie Mueller: And Joe. Referred to in the show as Old Joe. Or O-L apostrophe. I believe it's Old Joe. Maybe it's Old Joe. I don't know. And Joe comes in. Uh, Jen is the only one who's willing to take his order.

[44:45] Jessie Mueller: To serve him at this point. Yes. He's a bit of an old, he's a bit of a cranky pants. Maybe he's just hangry all the time. I'm trying to say, you know, I'm looking back and, you know, Joe probably has a lot on his plate. Yeah. And he's just hangry a lot. So anytime he comes into the diner, he just needs his eggs and two tomatoes and whatever else he orders.

[45:03] Jessie Mueller: I forget. Do you know anyone who specifically orders a side of tomato slices?

[45:08] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. On a separate plate. On a separate plate, I think was part of the order. How am I remembering this stuff? The brilliant Dakin, Dakin Matthews. I told you he would come back.

[45:15] Jessie Mueller: I know. Cause I'm hearing Dakin Matthews, the brilliant Dakin Matthews played Joe in the original Broadway production. And I'm hearing him tomatoes on a separate plate.

[45:25] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. Yeah. And I think Jenna just gets a kick out of him. For some reason, she's the only one that can sort of sass him back and he'll take it.

[45:32] Jessie Mueller: That dynamic between those two. I, we didn't talk about this before we started recording. I'm in Hawaii. I live on, I'm currently working and living on Maui. That dynamic of how Jenna deals with Joe is the Aloha spirit.

[45:44] Jessie Mueller: Ah, well, Kay Alicetto will tell you that.

[45:51] Jessie Mueller: Who played Becky in the original Broadway cast. Cause she's from Hawaii as well.

[45:55] Jessie Mueller: Is she really? I didn't know she was from Hawaii.

[45:59] Jessie Mueller: So anyway, go, go Jenna given the Aloha spirit. Never thought about it that way.

[46:09] Jessie Mueller: Let's see what else is happening. She's incredibly talented at pies, but one day during her shift, she gets really, really nauseous. And her girlfriends are like, uh, I think you might be preggers. It's time to take a pregnancy test. Now sing a song about it. And you sing a song about it and got to focus on the negative.

[46:27] Jessie Mueller: Here's my question that I've never had the guts to ask a girl. And I hope you're okay with me asking it.

[46:33] Jessie Mueller: Well, that's fine. Is there, have I had a pregnancy scare? No, no, I would never go there with it. But is there a certain amount of anxiety that you kind of fall into as a woman where you're like, I could get pregnant at any moment. And this is like always a possibility.

[46:49] Jessie Mueller: Uh, yes. Especially if you grew up with any sort of religious background, I would say, Oh, sure, sure, sure. That's like, sure, sure. Everyone, you're like, once you get married and have children, but don't get pregnant, but don't you dare, don't you dare get pregnant now that will ruin your life.

[47:06] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. There's a little bit of that. I think in that, I just think that that would be so confusing that like your purpose I'm saying, right. That your purpose is to have children. But then if you do have children in the not correct order or something like that, right. According to somebody's rules and regulations.

[47:22] Jessie Mueller: Yes. Then it could ruin your life. Yes. Yes. Especially as a young, as a young female or female identifying person. Like it's extremely confusing. It's extremely confusing. So I think yes, that all three gals, every version of the gals that came in and played the parts of the three waitresses, I felt like all of us were like, Oh yeah, we get this. We got this number. No problem.

[47:45] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, sure. Yeah. Cause we have all these ideas, have all these ideas of right. The way it's supposed to happen the right way to sort of move through your life and have a baby or have a family and yeah.

[48:03] Jessie Mueller: So, um, right. When it doesn't go according to quote unquote plan. And to be clear, it is really not according to plan for Jenna who's in this abusive relationship. I'm really fascinated by this marriage because yes, it does get physical, but almost the, the part of the abuse that feels grossest to me is the emotional manipulation of it.

[48:21] Jessie Mueller: And I love, I love how that plays out.

[48:27] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. I think it's the emotional abuse really. Um, even in the show, you never really see, you never really like he throws her around a little bit, but like there isn't this violence reenacted.

[48:33] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. And there's a moment where there's at least in certain staging where there's maybe a moment where he might, he might make physical contact.

[48:43] Jessie Mueller: And that's when she, that's when she reveals that she's pregnant. I think possibly in an attempt to, um, not just protect herself, but I think there's just this innate thing that's like, I have to protect the baby.

[48:55] Jessie Mueller: And at that point in the show, the character really has not had a great connection with the baby. She has not really felt, felt a bond. It's not really a pregnancy that she has wanted.

[49:06] Jessie Mueller: And I think honestly, that was one of the things that was so, so new and different about the film too, was exploring the possibility that maybe a woman would get pregnant and not feel great about it. Not want to have a baby shower, not want to drown herself in pink or blue, if it's a boy or girl that, that there might be a non-typical response to that.

[49:27] Jessie Mueller: And that was something that, that's sort of why Adrian wrote the film is she was having all these mixed feelings about being pregnant. And she was like, and she was trying to work through it. So she wrote these characters and she wrote this story, um, about people who are going through very different things, but this main character who was struggling with this idea of being pregnant and what did that mean? And do I want a baby and how will I take care of it? And do I want a baby with this person?

[49:55] Jessie Mueller: And, um, which thankfully wasn't Adrian's situation. She was very happily married and was, was, um, you know, wanting, wanting the baby, but having a lot of, which I think it is very real, is very real.

[50:06] Jessie Mueller: I've never been pregnant, but I think that's a very human thing to go through big moments in your life that we sort of see as children, like, oh, there's this big moment, or here's a graduation from whatever college, or here's buying a house, or here's getting married or getting a promotion.

[50:21] Jessie Mueller: And, and it doesn't, when does it rare, it's rarely ever feels like we think it's going to feel like the nuance of her not wanting to get rid of the baby.

[50:32] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. Right. Cause she doesn't want to do that either, but also not really feeling emotionally connected to it. Like you said, until that moment.

[50:36] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. Something instinctual takes over, I think. And she's like, she knows she has to protect that baby.

[50:45] Jessie Mueller: The plan kind of gets attached throughout the first act. Thanks to information given by old Joe that there's this pie contest, pie baking contest that the winner receives $20,000 and she's the queen of pie.

[50:58] Jessie Mueller: Everybody raves about them. So she thinks, okay, if I can win this contest, that's my money to get out of the marriage, leave and start a life with the baby.

[51:05] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. That's my new life.

[51:12] Jessie Mueller: In the meantime, she's going to the OBGYN. It's this new doctor named Dr. Pomatter. Is that how you say it?

[51:18] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. Dr. Pomatter, who, what a, what a fun character. My gosh. Well, I was, I was about to call him Dr. Drew because Drew Galing played him in the original cast.

[51:29] Jessie Mueller: To perfection. Yeah. He kind of nailed the, the leading man, but also the kind of gawky, I was like noodling kind of nerdy.

[51:37] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. He just like, because I think that's one of the delights of the character is, um, you know, he's this doctor, he's very sort of straight laced.

[51:50] Jessie Mueller: He's from Connecticut. Like he sort of has the perfect life. He's not a Don Juan.

[51:55] Jessie Mueller: No. And then, but then you break it down and you realize too, that this, for whatever reason, this character, Jenna, like really unnerves him and throws him off his center.

[51:59] Jessie Mueller: And he gets, he gets like very googly around her. And she bakes these pies, which by the way, maybe it's the sugar. I don't know.

[52:11] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. Maybe it is the sugar high. I have always wanted to try the marshmallow mermaid pie. I don't even know what's in it, but like that sounds, that sounds fantastic.

[52:21] Jessie Mueller: You had me a different colored marshmallows. I think I remember talking about it in rehearsal. I was like, can we please, I know this is above my pay grade, but like, could we please have the different colored mini marshmallows on it? Like that has to be on that pie.

[52:33] Jessie Mueller: Right. And I think they were, I think they were.

[52:37] Jessie Mueller: Oh, that's adorable. That's fine. That's awesome. There was like a lady in Kentucky or something who made all the pies, like the pies you talk about.

[52:43] Jessie Mueller: I think it was Kentucky. Something like that. Maybe I'm making that up, but, but yes. So she made these like beautiful, they were like ceramic. She would like, I don't know, pipe clay and stuff.

[52:54] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. They were these beautiful things that looked like real pies, but they were made out of, yeah, a lot of them were heavy. So I think it was, it was like clay, ceramic, plasticine, something.

[53:05] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. It was, it was, they were incredible. They were like works of art.

[53:09] Jessie Mueller: That's amazing. And it was like, don't break those. Cause we don't want to buy more.

[53:14] Jessie Mueller: Did you have to eat very much in the show? I didn't have to eat it. Jenna doesn't eat at all. Other characters have to eat. Jenna doesn't eat anything.

[53:22] Jessie Mueller: I don't think.

[53:30] Jessie Mueller: Nothing. Just inhales flour during that one song. Just raw flour.

[53:37] Jessie Mueller: Into your cords. Yep. Enjoyable. Now, uh, in order to, to get into the contest, she has to have a certain amount of money. So she starts saving money and like hiding it.

[53:42] Jessie Mueller: That's right. Right. She has to get to the contest because it's some, I forget where it is, but it's somewhere where, yeah, she has to like get on a bus and get there and get a hotel.

[53:51] Jessie Mueller: And yeah, so it requires some, some planning and some, some, some dough.

[53:56] Jessie Mueller: And yeah, some scheming because Earl, the husband is taking all of her money. He's, it's so messed up, but he's like, how much did you make me? You know, how much did you make for us?

[54:07] Jessie Mueller: Because he also left his job. He got fired from his construction job or left his construction job. So, so yeah, so she's the breadwinner of the family at the, at the moment when the, when the play takes place.

[54:17] Jessie Mueller: So yeah, she's. So she's not giving him maybe like all the tips.

[54:22] Jessie Mueller: She's hiding a little bit of the time.

[54:25] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, she's starting to siphon some away.

[54:31] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. A little bit of a time. So hopefully he won't notice. Around this time, all of the waitresses start finding some, uh, pleasure, shall we say? Because Jenna starts sleeping with Dr. Pomatter.

[54:40] Jessie Mueller: Right. And Becky starts sleeping with Cal. She's getting on with Cal.

[54:49] Jessie Mueller: Getting on with Cal. And Dawn has found herself a boyfriend, an online boyfriend, uh, named, is it Augie or Ogie?

[54:56] Jessie Mueller: Ogie. Ogie. Ogie.

[54:56] Jessie Mueller: Okay. Yeah. Originally played by the hilarious Christopher Fitzgerald. I mean, I don't.

[55:01] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, brilliant Christopher Fitzgerald. And Kimiko Glenn brilliantly played the original, the original Dawn.

[55:06] Jessie Mueller: And the guy, I was like, why, I didn't mention Kimiko yet.

[55:10] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. Yeah. Kimiko brilliant.

[55:16] Jessie Mueller: And I, her song, When He Sees Me, is such a perfect example of what I think Sara Bareilles does so beautifully throughout this entire score, which is that like, when do you get a character piece, a character song that also has such moments of beauty?

[55:31] Jessie Mueller: Like every song in this score has just a little moment that's gorgeous. I think of, uh, Bad Idea that Jenna and Dr. Pomatter sing. And it's, and it's a great song and it's got this heat to it, but then.

[55:38] Jessie Mueller: And that bridge comes in.

[55:43] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. And you have like that beautiful thing in harmony and you just do it once. You never repeat it.

[55:49] Jessie Mueller: That's true. It's just that one time. There are just moments like that, that always take me back to the beauty of the story and the piece. And yeah, I really love that.

[55:59] Jessie Mueller: Maybe that's her acapella background. That's the harmonic, just the way she hears harmonics.

[56:03] Jessie Mueller: I agree. It's, it's something that's so unique about her and it has such an emotional impact, I think.

[56:08] Jessie Mueller: Yeah. Yeah. Every time. Well, now let's skip to the second act because of course something bad has to happen. Earl finds the money in the sofa and she lies and says that she was going to use it to buy the crib for the baby.

[56:22] Jessie Mueller: And this is the moment where Jenna sings, She Used To Be Mine.

[56:29] Jessie Mueller: Now I'm always fascinated by like what songs get adopted into the canon of great musical theater songs. Like if you were going to back in the old days, if you were going to get a CD of now that's what I call Broadway or something like that.

[56:45] Jessie Mueller: Right. What would be included.

[56:46] Jessie Mueller: What songs are included. I am what I am. Everything's coming up roses. And I would say from the 2010s, like this is the song. Like how cool is that?

[56:57] Jessie Mueller: It's something that I think I'm still taking in. And I say that aside from anything that I had to do with it. Again, that was one of the first songs I ever heard from the piece.

[57:03] Jessie Mueller: And I believe that was the first song she wrote. When Sara was approached said, Hey, would you maybe want to try your hand at writing a musical? There's this movie we want to adapt. Why don't you watch it? Why don't you take home the old DVD, give it a watch and see if it inspires you.

[1:00:29] Jessie Mueller: I'm so glad you said that because as an actor, that would have been so difficult because we have these like working-class people, you know, they to me as the actor like it would be so uncomfortable for me to get up there and you know say something like my feelings are like the wind and it's you know, my life, you know something super romantic with a capital R Byron-esque that's like yeah, that wouldn't be that person. So she is using simple language. She's using words like messy, kind, you're not what I asked for it and these thoughts are just the tip of the iceberg. They're just they're bubbling up and they're bubbling up in the moment. It's not premeditated. So as an actor it was so fun and also freakishly frightening.

I remember I never wanted to work on the song in rehearsal because it just felt too big. It felt too daunting to me vocally and emotionally to be like I don't want to mess this part up. This is so important. This is so what Sara has done is so right that I was like, oh, I don't wanna how do we do it? It's like it's so good. I really sort of put it on a pedestal and I didn't want to touch it for the longest time.

[1:01:39] Jessie Mueller: When it comes to your vocal approach to these big moments or these songs you have so many crayons in your singing coloring box, you have so many different colors that you can use. What kind of dictates your approach to say like Julie Jordan versus Jenna? Do you like with Sara? Vocally an inspiration for how you approached the songs or you know, like where do you go to find that?

[1:02:08] Jessie Mueller: Such a great question. I think for that for Waitress, Sara definitely was an inspiration just because I also love her voice so much. And yet that was tricky for me because we have very different voices in the sense that like I just I feel like she has no break in her voice from a vocal perspective and if people don't know what that is it's sort of the melding between like what would be like your chest or belt voice into you what's called like your passaggio that goes into your sort of higher sticky transition place. Yeah, it's like you're sticky muddy transition place where it's like, oh it kind of sounds like you're going through puberty again or something. But yeah where you it's very hard to navigate sort of between those two areas and I just feel like Sara doesn't have that.

So, you know, she wrote what she wrote as she was creating and singing and it sounded so amazing in her voice and she was so generous to me and that we messed around with the keys a lot especially for She Used to Be Mine because she wanted me to feel comfortable and she's like I'm not precious about what key it's in or what note you're hitting or anything like that like I want it to feel right to you as the character as the performer. So we messed around with that a lot. But yeah, she was definitely a huge inspiration.

[1:03:30] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, and also just because I love her delivery. She is such a glorious voice, but she also to me is such a good communicator. It's like a mix between you have such a beautiful voice and I feel like you're just talking to me at the same time. Yeah, and I love voices like that. I feel Judy Kuhn is another voice like that to me like a female voice that that sort of hits that I don't know that goosebump place in me. But the other thing that I think about a lot is that is the connection between the singing voice and the speaking voice of a character. Oh, that's cool. And especially if a character has an accent. I'm big into I never want there to be like a divide or to like take somebody out of it if all of a sudden or if someone seems like a very grounded earthy character to me it wouldn't make sense if they were like singing in the sky high soprano.

So, you know, Sara had already done that work. I think she'd voiced it in a certain place that made a lot of sense for the character. But I was really interested and we played with this during the process but I was interested in bringing in some of those like sort of country folk Americana sensibilities to the sound of it because I feel like that was our setting though. That's who those people are. That's the kind of music she would have been listening to. That's the kind of music I listened to when I was working on the show preparing for the show researching stuff like I mean a lot of the classic stuff and also I remember being really inspired by a Casey Musgraves song called Merry-Go-Round that I found and I just felt like oh my god, this is Jenna, this is Jenna, this is her people, this is her world.

This is the great lines like same trailer different park. What's that brilliant line to buy same checks we're always cashing to buy a little more distraction sort of small town a little bit. I don't want to say small mindset because I don't mean that but just just like your world is a little smaller and it's not necessarily your fault even it's just that I'm like what would that be like if I had only been exposed to this and that and the other and there were certain things expected of me. So yeah, I don't mean to upset nobody by saying things like that but I think there is something to it's just about like what are your characters given circumstances? What sort of exposure have you had to the world, the sort of education? Have you had things like that? So I think that stuff all comes into my vocal approach as well.

[1:05:50] Jessie Mueller: Well, that's why you win awards. So the show ends with of course Jenna giving birth but on her way to the hospital she runs into Old Joe who gives her an envelope and says you know open this when the time is right because he's he knows that he's about to die. Yeah, and in the envelope is essentially the deed to the diner. Yeah, so he's he gives her the diner just just I think another crack open type experience for her to realize her own power, right? And between that and like the ferocity of giving birth to a child, which is so beautifully orchestrated by voices and breath and it's really beautiful allows Jenna to stand up to Earl. Yeah, and to welcome this new love in her life which is her new daughter named Lulu.

[1:06:41] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, and her new and her new purpose and her new strength like you said all of a sudden it's and and I've and I've experienced the same thing. You said all of a sudden it's and and I've and I've experienced this with with friends of mine who have become parents and certainly friends who've become moms you just I don't know. There's like this whole other part that opens up. It's weird because you're like sleep deprived you have so much to do but you also have these other reserves that you're just like well, it's got to get done. I'm tapping and I gotta take care of this kid and they are number one and yeah, and it and it also I also I think from what my friends have said because I don't have children but it also makes your priorities real clear.

It makes your boundaries pretty clear too about how you take care of yourself as well because you know that like you have to take care of this other person. So it kind of ramps up that in a weird and great way too and all of a sudden it's like you don't put up with stuff you used to put up with you know what I mean? Yeah, I think I think yeah, that's that's in the play too. I think Jenna definitely takes that on. It's fantastic.

[1:07:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh, Jessie Mueller, thank you so much for doing this with me. What a pleasure.

[1:07:49] Jessie Mueller: Thanks for having me. Thank you for the characters and the stories and the music. My gosh. We're very blessed. We're very lucky as always if you have recommendations for shows you'd like us to cover on A Musical Theatre Podcast you can always email me at amusicalpodcast@gmail.com. Don't forget to follow us on social media. We're on Twitter, on Instagram, we're on TikTok. We also have Patreon where you can subscribe for only one dollar a month and receive bonus episodes. What else? We also have our TeePublic store. Don't forget to go look at those designs, maybe grab yourself a t-shirt or sweatshirt or any sort of thing. The profits we receive from that will go to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. More than anything, everybody, so grateful you're part of this wonderful podcasting community. Thank you for your listener requests and for creating these awesome opportunities to hear from amazing artists like Jessie.

[1:08:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Hey, Jessie, how do we follow you? And what's next for you?

[1:08:47] Jessie Mueller: Oh, well, I'm not on any social media, which I know it's for you, it's very, very rare to find you and you're like, I can't find you. I can't find you. So thanks to the fans who keep up. I don't know how on what's going on with me, but I really appreciate it because hopefully it's a way to share the work that I get to be a part of and I believe in. And one of the latest things I've gotten to do actually is a two. I've just gotten to do two studio recordings of two new musicals. One is buddies of mine Alan Schmuckler and Michael Mahler have been working on a musicalized version of Diary of a Wimpy Kid the book series. Oh, no, that was so fun. Yes. That was so fun. We did and Norbert Leo Butz worked on it and Sutton Foster.

I don't know if you've heard these folks, Kevin DeLagula. Yeah, so that was a total ball and we just worked on that and this other project they just got to work on is a new musical called My Heart Says Go and it's a musical also sort of a concept album which is just been really super fun. And I got involved in it and the writer's name is Jorge Rivera-Herrans and he's just this, I don't know, this musical wunderkind who's just sort of blowing up. I'm just so excited about what he's doing now, but also like what we will see from him to come.

[1:10:12] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, a new voice out there, a new voice and an original story and original music. It's also so fun to hear a new generation that you can tell they grew up listening to like Lin-Manuel Miranda. You know what I mean? It's yes, and that's what I felt when I heard the early demos and I was like this is cool and new but also throwback-y and he just gets it. He's so smart, his writing from character point of view. So I just got to work on that. Have your Muniz worked on it, a lot of really wonderful people. So we're very excited about that and that is out now that you can get on iTunes. You can play it or stream it or buy it wherever you like to do. Yeah, you can check that out and it's just really a beautiful piece that I think will bring people together.

It's a lot about young people trying to listen to their heart and feeling out what it is saying to them and sort of the pushback that they can get from parents, mentors, teachers and how we listen to our hearts, how we follow our hearts and the people we meet along the way and it's I was really honored to be a part of it.

[1:11:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well fantastic. Everybody listen to that, My Heart Says Go wherever you stream music. Jessie, again, thank you so much, congrats on everything and listeners, thank you for listening. Go have a piece of pie on me.

[1:11:27] Jessie Mueller: Yeah, do it, do it. Say yes to the pie.