Sara Bareilles has baked up a new credit as Broadway composer with the score for Waitress, which heads from Boston to New York this spring. Though Tony winner Jessie Mueller stars in the show, Bareilles hasn’t ruled out a brave move to center stage at some point.
“I hope to get to see those stage lights at some point,” the singer/songwriter recently told Glamour magazine. “I certainly have dreams of being on a Broadway stage someday…whether it’s in this show or something else.”
Her acting aspirations are inspired by her tremendous respect for Mueller. “I thought I would have a much harder time relinquishing the role to someone else,” she admitted. “But then getting to work with someone like Jessie Mueller and watching her and how masterful she is at creating a character, I feel like I have a lot to learn before I would be ready to take on something like this.”
The five-time Grammy nominee hasn’t abandoned her composing ambitions, however. “I also would be really interested in developing something brand new,” she said. “I think that sounds really exciting. But let’s vote for The Princess Bride. I love it, so let’s do that one.”
Bareilles may not hit the Great White Way spotlight for some time, but you can hear her take on her own Waitress tunes on What’s Inside: Songs from Waitress, which is scheduled to drop on November 6. You can read all about her Broadway dreams in her recently released collection of essays Sounds Like Me.
Waitress begins performances at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on March 25.