Waitress Dance Concert Report

I will start this by being brutally honest, I tend to indulge myself in things others would refer to as “mushy crap”; ice cream, boy bands, badly written romance novels, all things I enjoy, along with Waitress. The musical based closely off of a 2007 film of the same name, opened on Broadway in April of 2016 and has been experiencing a successful run so far, with a tour scheduled for 2017. I had the pleasure of seeing Waitress this summer, in early July and, admittedly, shed a tear or two, or twenty. The journey to Broadway began with a workshop in 2014. The workshop was in New York and featured Jessie Mueller, Keala Settle, and Barrett Wilbert Weed. After positive reviews, “Waitress” shifter to the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, …show more content…
This is used in moments of intense anger or intense pleasure, fantasizing leaving her husband or being with her lover, creating a fool’s paradise. The element of dance is added beautifully in a fully realized vision of light and movement. The choreography is fairly clean and simple, with dances only used to further imply when Jenna is daydreaming or to add movement to some of the more upbeat songs of the production. The change from realism to dance during Jenna’s fantasies is a bold and useful choice, clarifying the differences for the audience, and adding to the character. Reading a bit into this choice, it may be something of note that Jenna is usually being picked up and moved around the stage, like a pawn or prop. This may be to show that she is not in control, or perhaps that she cannot reach her goals on her own. Lorin Latarro’s choreography is smart and it adds to the beautiful environment “Waitress” already creates with its fun backdrop as an independent diner, checkerboard floors and all. The set uses light and fun colors to show a traditional 50’s style diner, which makes sense for its traditional chick-flick style of