The GoodheART Report – Waitress Rehearsal Diary: Week 2

The GoodheART Report – Waitress Rehearsal Diary: Week 2

Nina Goodheart, gap year intern, brings you a progress report on rehearsals for Waitress, the first show of the A.R.T.’s 2015-16 season. Waitress features music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles, book by Jessie Nelson based on the screenplay by Adrienne Shelley, and is directed by Diane Paulus.

Rehearsals for Waitress are in full swing! Here are some highlights from our second week of rehearsal.

– Watching rehearsals from the wings. Now that we’re deep into staging, stage management interns (such as myself) often get to move set pieces and help transitions flow smoothly. I usually sit offstage left, where we store the counter for our diner scenes. Sitting to the side provides an invaluable perspective on the actors’ process; I can see a level of detail in their performances that I might never be able to grasp from the audience. For me, it’s put the cliché “seeing things from an entirely different angle” into a whole new light.

– Choreography for “Opening Up,” which is probably the most complex song to stage in the entire show.  Monday morning found cast members throwing plates like Frisbees, with plastic pieces of pie flying in all directions. It was amazing to watch our choreographer Chase Brock lead the cast through each meticulously crafted section of the song, and finally weave them all together until Joe’s Diner was running like a well-oiled machine. (And it’s always fun to see Sara Bareilles sitting front row, drumming on the stage and beaming as her music bursts into physical form.)

– Blocking “When He Sees Me,” a solo for the sweet and shy waitress Dawn, played by Jeanna de Waal. This song provided an excellent example of Diane Paulus’s collaborative process. Jeanna showed up with tons of great ideas for actions to evoke Dawn’s debilitating anxiety about a potential blind date, so Diane set her loose to try things out. Jessie Mueller and Keala Settle jumped in too, and eventually Diane had the whole group walk through the number, pausing every few lines to finesse a beat or a joke. At one point, Jeanna stood up and sang a chorus from on top of a table, then quirked her head and asked, “Too much?” Diane replied, “It’s a musical!” In under an hour, the song was well on its way to being a showstopper.

– Diane’s birthday. What better way to close out the week of rehearsals than to celebrate our daring director with some “We Wanted to Get a Pie But We Thought It Wouldn’t Be Big Enough to Feed Everyone” Cake? (Plus, now I can officially say I’ve sung “Happy Birthday” with multiple Tony winners and a pop star.)

Check back soon for another Waitress update!

Nina Goodheart is a full-time A.R.T. artistic intern, blogger, and stage management intern for Waitress. This show is making her very hungry.

(Photo by Eric Anderson)