Mia Michaels Will Choreograph Sara Bareilles Musical Waitress | Playbill

News Mia Michaels Will Choreograph Sara Bareilles Musical Waitress Mia Michaels, who makes her Broadway debut this season with Finding Neverland — and who won an Emmy Award for her choreography of Sara Bareilles' "Gravity" on "So You Think You Can Dance" — will choreograph Bareilles' musical Waitress.

When asked the next time she'd be working with Finding Neverland director Diane Paulus, Michaels told Playbill.com, "Our next show is Waitress. That's Sara Bareilles' music, and it's a very intimate women's piece. It's a very empowering piece, so I'm excited about that. Sara Bareilles and I have history; I won an Emmy doing work with her music. It's all full circle." 

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Mia Michaels

The new Bareilles-scored musical will make its world premiere at the American Repertory Theater in August 2015. As previously reported, it may be headed to Broadway following its Cambridge engagement, although a Broadway timeline or theatre have not yet been announced. 

Watch Michaels' choreography of "Gravity": 

Tony Award winner Jessie Mueller, who recently departed Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, was among the Broadway actors who took part in the A.R.T.'s recent New York City workshops of Waitress. It was previously reported by the New York Times that Mueller was participating in the workshops and had tapped Waitress as her next musical role post Beautiful.

She played the central role 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." Mueller talks about Waitress in her Beautiful exit interview with Playbill.com

The workshop cast also included Christopher Fitzgerald, Amber Iman, Bryce Pinkham, Andy Karl, Keala Settle, Dierdre Friel and Barrett Wilbert Weed, among others.

No casting for the A.R.T. premiere has been announced, and as is the case with many musicals in development, workshop participants do not reflect future casting for the production.

Playbill.com broke the news of Waitress in June 2013 when Tony Award-winning producers Barry and Fran Weissler revealed that they were collaborating with their Tony-winning Pippin director Paulus on the new musical to be scored by Grammy Award nominee Bareilles. The Weissler's Tony-winning revival of Pippin premiered at A.R.T. prior to its acclaimed Broadway arrival.

Waitress will begin previews in Cambridge, MA, Aug. 1. Paulus is the artistic director of A.R.T.

"Corrina Corrina" screenwriter, director and producer Jessie Nelson has penned the book for Waitress.

Visit americanrepertorytheater.org.

Below, Bareilles performs "She Used to Be Mine" in concert and describes how the song fits into Waitress.

 
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