‘Waitress’ serving up just desserts at Theatre Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS — “Waitress” is ready to serve up a slice of reality, with a measure of magic, onstage at Theatre Cedar Rapids from June 21 to July 28, 2024.

Don’t expect tap-dancing rolling pins or servers on skates. With music and lyrics by soulful pop star Sara Bareilles, this isn’t your typical Broadway-style musical. But when the non-musical 2007 film made the leap to New York’s musical theater realm in 2016, it garnered four Tony nominations and played for nearly four years.

And although a national tour came to Iowa City’s Hancher Auditorium in October 2021, the TCR production marks Iowa’s regional theater debut.

If you go

What: “Waitress”

Where: Theatre Cedar Rapids, 102 Third St. SE, Cedar Rapids

When: June 21 to July 28, 2024; 7:30 p.m. Thursday to Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday; ASL signing June 27

Tickets: $27 to $65 adults; $25 students and youths; TCR Box Office, (319) 366-8591 or theatrecr.org/

It’s the story of Jenna, an expert pie baker and waitress at Joe’s Pie Diner, somewhere in the southern United States. She learned her culinary craft from her mother, who used pie-baking as a diversion from her unhappy marriage. Adult Jenna (played by Marita May O’Connell) does the same.

The story confronts dark themes of physical and emotional abuse, dreams of an escape into a better future, infidelity and loss. But it also is infused with laughter and joy.

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“I think it is uplifting because its central character is a person with special superpowers,” director Angie Toomsen said. “She has her creativity and her talent with pies in a way that’s almost alchemical, in the results that they produce in other people and in other lives. It’s almost like she’s conjuring things.

“So that sounds like great fodder for musical theater,” she said.

Darkness

“But we learn that the reason she developed the superpowers is because as a little girl, her mother used to use baking in the kitchen as a way to protect her from the fighting in their home and her alcoholic father. So it becomes her go-to as an adult, when her feelings become overwhelming to her.

“I think right there is the kind of under-the-surface that we dig to, to reveal that this musical is quirky, and it’s messy, and it’s about real people. But because it is a musical, it still gets to contain or amplify a kind of fairy tale or whimsical quality.”

Circling back to the darkness, she called that “the rare thing” about the show.

“The core story is about Jenna Hunterson getting unstuck from an abusive relationship,” Toomsen said. “And I think this is so important, because some of the most insidious, domestic and family-centered abuse can be physical, but it’s also psychological in nature, and sometimes even more so.

“Many of the strongest and most successful and talented people that we know could be struggling with an abusive relationship. We don’t talk about abuse as often as it happens, so I think this is so important. And it’s one of the reasons this show is so impactful and uplifting to so many people.”

Earl, the husband

Tad Paulson, 53, of Cedar Rapids, plays Jenna’s abusive husband, Earl. A technical writer and all-around good guy in real life, Paulson is no stranger to playing a bad guy onstage.

He played a nice guy in TCR’s hit 2022 production of “Mamma Mia!” but added: “I did throw a baby off a train in ‘Brightstar.’ That got me in a lot of trouble with some audience members. But it’s gratifying when someone comes to you after the show and says, ‘I hate you, but I love you.’ I think that’s gonna happen with this, too.

“I think the audience is definitely going to know some Earls in their life. I think everybody has somebody like that. Hopefully not with every single quality that Earl has, the angry uncles, the supervisor — somebody who has some of those qualities — and the audience is going to recognize him pretty quickly.”

As an actor, Paulson said that even when playing a bad guy, he needs to dig into the character’s back story, to find out what made him that way.

“I try not to judge them. I try to find something in common with them. They’re all human beings at the end of the day, unless you’re playing Satan. I have played Satan before, and I think Earl is probably worse. But I think the audience needs to see somebody like Earl. Everybody in this play is in a tough point of their life, and everybody’s reacting to it in a slightly different way.”

He described Earl as “somebody whose life is in a bit of ruins.” He’s just lost his job — most likely in construction — which was the only thing he had any control over, and he channels his frustrations onto his wife.

Paulson said he finds himself “constantly apologizing” to O’Connell after their intense scenes, and that’s where having Carrie Pozdol onboard as the intimacy director helps. Her role goes beyond assisting actors with finding a comfort zone and boundaries within the script’s romantic encounters, but also helping them process the unsavory intimacy, too, so that when they step out of the scene, they can shake it off.

Toomsen added: “One of the interesting things Carrie says is, ‘You know it’s not real, but your body does not.’ And I think that is so fascinating” and helps the theater “take better care of the wellness of our actors.”

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Jenna, the baker

To prepare for the role, O’Connell, 32, of Cedar Rapids, turned to her mother-in-law.

“She’s an expert pie maker, herself. It was really fun to sit down with her one day and actually make a pie from scratch. So I can say I’ve made one homemade pie in my day,” O’Connell said. “I usually buy the premade crusts and make my pies that way, but homemade — I finally checked that box.”

She described Jenna’s journey as one of “self-discovery and empowerment.”

Stuck in her marriage to Earl, she “has just been baking her frustrations and worries into her pies for years,” O’Connell said. “At the start of the musical, we encounter her realization that she is pregnant, and that is not necessarily something that she wants right away because it’s Earl’s baby, and she already is unhappy.”

On her journey, however, she finds joy in “new, unexpected ways with Dr. Pomatter. It’s also following her friendships with the two other waitresses at the diner, Dawn and Becky, and that also brings her joy and lightness in her life. But by the end of the story, just seeing her arc and finding the joy of motherhood is really beautiful as well, which I love. That was a big draw to the role for me, because of that piece of the pie.”

O’Connell, a freelance musician, frequently is featured playing her violin onstage or in the orchestra. She won’t be bringing her instrumental prowess to this production, but her other role as mom for her 2-year-old daughter adds a layer of warmth to her Jenna.

“Towards the end, when she has the baby and she’s singing these beautiful songs about discovering herself through the birth of her own child, is some of the best lyrics I think in the show. … Where she feels like she was born today when she has her baby.

“And that’s so true with myself, because it unlocks this entire new version of yourself when you become a mom. So singing those songs feels like they have so much more depth and meaning to me now, compared to if I were to step into this role years ago without that experience. I was humbled and honored that they allowed me to play this role, and as a mom, it meant a lot more.”

Dr. Pomatter

It’s been six years since Alex Anderson, 35, of Cedar Rapids, stepped onto the TCR stage. That time, he appeared in Andrew Lippa’s Roaring ’20s musical, “The Wild Party.”

This show is very different.

“My wife and I have been fans of Sara Bareilles in general, and this show for years,” said Anderson, a Linn County prosecutor. Now that their two daughters are a little older, the couple decided they could make the demanding rehearsal and performance schedule work.

“I just love to sing and to be on stage,” he said, “and so to have the opportunity again, and knowing that some of my friends were auditioning, I thought it would be a really fun way to just to mix it up.”

He described the doctor, who becomes Jenna’s love interest, as “a nervous fella.”

“I think he means well. He’s very much the opposite of Earl. I think he’s lived his life the way he thought he was supposed to. He’s a doctor, he’s married, he’s moved to the town, and supports his wife. But I think much like Jenna and a lot of the other characters in the show, he is at a point where he wonders, ‘I’ve done all the right things. Is this it? Is this all that life is?’

“Having an existential crisis is probably the best way to describe it,” Anderson said. “And when he can kind of read that in Jenna, they find some kind of kindred spirits there, to connect with each other.”

He also has two songs in the show. “All with Jenna, luckily, because the more Marita sings, the better,” he said. “I do find that all the music is moving, by itself, then the lyrics do a lot of the heavy lifting for us story-wise, which I appreciate, too.”

Even Earl has a song, which Paulson said “brings out the rock side of Sara Bareilles. She writes equally well for every vocal range, and it’s a really fun, kind of funny song at times.”

O’Connell added that while the show explores “serious, mature themes,” it’s “blanketed in that comedy, and the music is so uplifting. It’s the perfect balance of a dramatic storyline that is lifted by all those other light and airy things, which is nice.”

“It’s grounded in reality, too,” Anderson noted. “ … There are consequences for the choices you make. There’s not a wicked witch that comes in or a fairy that comes down at the end and Jenna’s life is better. That’s not how it works. She has to make the choices and deal with the outcomes.”

And Toomsen is confident the show “is going to make everybody hungry for pie.”

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com