NEW YORK, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- The new stage musical Waitress, starring Tony Award-winning actress Jessie Mueller, is to open April 24 at Broadway's Brooks Atkinson Theatre, producers announced.
Previews are to begin March 25. Additional casting is to be announced shortly.
The musical is based on the 2007 motion picture written and directed by the late Adrienne Shelly. It features a book by Jessie Nelson, music and lyrics by singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles, and direction by Tony Award-winner Diane Paulus.
The show recently played a sold-out, limited engagement at the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.
Mueller is the winner of the 2014 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.
"Jenna is a waitress and expert pie-maker stuck in a small town and a loveless marriage," a synopsis for Waitress said. "Faced with an unexpected pregnancy, Jenna fears she may have to abandon the dream of opening her own pie shop forever... until a baking contest in a nearby county and the town's handsome new doctor offer her a tempting recipe for happiness. Supported by her quirky crew of fellow waitresses and loyal customers, Jenna summons the secret ingredient she's been missing all along – courage."
The film version of Waitress starred Shelly, Keri Russell, Cheryl Hines, Nathan Fillion, Jeremy Sisto and Andy Griffith. Shelly was murdered during a burglary in her Manhattan office in 2006, shortly before the movie opened to critical acclaim. She was 40.
