Sara Bareilles Talks New Musical WAITRESS: 'I'm Living Out My Dream'

Singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles has written her first musical WAITRESS, based on the 2007 film of the same name. The show opened this month at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA. and is set to hit Broadway's Brooks Atkinson Theatre next spring. The talented artist speaks with Billboard.com for their September 5th issue and shares, "I'm living out my dream!"

Commenting on why she decided the film was a good subject for a musical, Bareilles shares, "It's charming and odd. There's a lot of people making mistakes. It's not an upstanding society we're getting a glimpse into: The love story's between two adulterers!"

The singer also gushes on her love musical theater. "I'm living out my dreams," she explains. "My sister and mom were both in theater, and it was this whole discovery for me to see the community of cast and crew. I was in Little Shop of Horrors - I played Audrey and a street urchin - and Charlotte's Web as a kid. Soundtracks like Miss Saigon and Oklahoma! were my introduction to being a listener."

Comparing the tasks of composing a pop song and a musical theater piece, Bareilles offers, "I've tried to make these songs able to stand on their own. I want them to be telling a story, where you don't need the accouterments of theater to know what's happening. That has been the coolest rediscovery for me: that songs are all about storytelling."

Directed by Tony winner Diane Paulus and featuring a book by Jessie Nelson, Waitress began performances at the Loeb Drama Center on Saturday, August 1, 2015.

Based upon the motion picture written by Adrienne Shelly, the new musical follows the story of Jenna, an inventive Waitress trapped in a small-town diner and a loveless marriage. Pregnant and lonely, Jenna finds relief in making creatively-titled pies - and in a budding romance with an unlikely newcomer.

Sara Bareilles first achieved mainstream critical praise in 2007 with her widely successful hit, "Love Song" which reached #1 in 22 countries around the world from her debut album LITTLE VOICE. Since then, the Eureka, CA native has gone on to sell over 1 million copies of her debut album, earn 3 Grammy nominations including Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Love Song." Bareilles' critically acclaimed sophomore release KALEIDOSCOPE HEART was released inSeptember of 2010, debuted at #1 on the Billboard top 200 chart and has gained critical praise everywhere including the New York Times,Wall Street Journal, People and Los Angeles Times. The album yielded the hit single "King of Anything," which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and was certified platinum by the RIAA. In 2011, Bareilles joined the judge's panel on the hit NBC show "The Sing-Off." Sara's third studio effort, THE BLESSED UNREST, released in July of 2013 and debuted at #2 on the Billboard album chart. The album has since gone on to achieve critical praise and earned Sara two Grammy Award nominations for "Album of the Year" and "Best Pop Solo Performance" for her smash breakout single "Brave."

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos