Broadway aficionados with a thing for romantic comedies will be in musical romcom heaven this week and next as the Segerstrom Center For The Arts welcomes Waitress, the winningest Broadway musical romcom since Elle Woods stole hearts in Legally Blonde.

 The heart-stealer this time round is Jenna Hunterton (Christine Dwyer), whose lovingly confectioned, cutely named pies—Marshmallow Mermaid Pie, A Little Wild, Wild, Berry Pie, etc.—are easily the most ordered sweet treats on the menu of the southern road stop diner where she works for tips that get promptly pocketed by her lout of a husband Earl (Matt DeAngelis).

No wonder then that Jenna is none too happy when a home pregnancy test turns up positive, though at the very least she’s got fellow waitresses Dawn (Jessie Shelton) and Becky (Maiesha McQueen) as emotional backup, something she’s sorely in need of not, and not just at home.

 Joe’s Diner chef Cal (Ryan G. Duncan) is never one to hold back on barking commands, and curmudgeonly owner/customer Joe (Larry Marshall) is nothing if not picky in his breakfast orders.

In other words, the last thing Jenna needs when she goes in for official confirmation of her positive home pregnancy test results is the discovery that her lifelong (female) doctor has retired and her position taken over by a big city OB/GYN (Steven Good as Dr. Jim Pomater), hot and handsome as all get-out but with a wedding ring on his finger that kind of puts a damper on his goofy charm.

Meanwhile back at the diner, ditzy Dawn tries out online dating and comes up with the equally oddball Ogie (Jeremy Morse) as her purportedly perfect match, while the friction between the orders-barking Cal and sassy-tongued Becky is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

As for Jenna, with a baby on the way, an out-of-work husband insistent that his wife must never ever love their child more than she loves him, and little or no way out of the mess she’s in, things could not look bleaker, that is unless she can hide enough dollar tips to enter a local pie-baking contest, win first place, and use the prize money to buy her escape.

Like the aforementioned (and similarly female-empowering) Legally Blonde, Waitress takes as its source material a hit movie romcom and stirs in song and dance, in this case a dozen-and-a-half of the catchiest tunes and cleverest lyrics ever written for a Broadway musical by a certified pop superstar.

Book writer Jessie Nelson wisely sticks to plot elements that made Adrienne Shelly’s original screenplay work so well while allowing Tony/Grammy/Emmy nominee Sara Bareilles’s eclectic songs to propel the plot to clever, tuneful effect.

Director Diane Paulus keeps things bright and breezy throughout as choreographer Lorin Latarro gets diner customers popping up out of their seats to provide baking-moves backup or create mini “recipe ballets” spiced with ingenious ingredients-inspired props.

 With six of Waitress’s nine main performers new to their roles since September, there’s a particular freshness to the Segerstrom Center cast beginning with Dwyer’s captivating star turn as Jenna, instantly likable, deeply touching, gorgeously voiced, and getting us to root for this proverbial underdog while inwardly screaming out our frustration at her continued bad choices.

Good’s Dr. Jim is both accessibly handsome and quirkly irresistible, but he’s married gosh darn it, and though DeAngelis does his best to humanize Earl (whose abuse doesn’t seem yet to have turned physical but could be headed that way), the man deserves to be given a heave-ho Jenna seems ill-inclined to give.

Shelton and Morse make for two of the most adorable oddballs ever to fall head over heels on the Segertrom stage and McQueen and Dunkin ignite their own electric sparks in the most unexpected of ways.

 Marshall reveals a heart of mush under Joe’s crusty exterior, while Rheaume Crenshaw does some scene-stealing of her own as Dr. Jim’s feisty Nurse Norma.

Triple-threat ensemble members Jim Hogan (Father), Kolby Kindle, Gerianne Pérez, Alex Tripp (Francine), Grace Stockdale (Mother), and dance captain Kevin Zak spice up the tasty mix from start to finish.

Design elements are all-around Broadway Grade A, in particular a scenic design by Scott Pask that not only takes us to Waitress’s multiple locales but makes sure we know just how smack dab in the middle of nowhere they all are, and ace music director Robert Cookman and his onstage band of “customers” deserve their own cheers.

Associate director Nancy Harrington and associate choreographer Abbey O’Brien keep things fresh on tour.  Swings David Hughey, Emily Koch, Tatiana Lofton, and Brad Standley are poised to step in at a moment’s notice. Child charmers Catherine Last and Elizabeth Last alternate as Lulu.

Hillary Hamilton is company manager.  Nicole Olson is production stage manager.

Eschewing the current Broadway trend towards gimmicks, spectacle, bombast, or a combination of the three, Waitress does what a quality musical is supposed to do. It combines book, music, lyrics, song, and dance to grab an audience by the heart and never let go.

Segerstrom Center For The Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.
www.scfta.org

–Steven Stanley
November 13, 2018
Photos: Tim Trumble, Joan Marcus

Tags: Adrienne Shelly, Jessie Nelson, Orange County Theater Review, Sara Bareilles, Segerstrom Center For The Arts