Cast & Creative
Jessie wrote, directed, and produced I Am Sam starring Sean Penn, who received an Academy Award nomination for his performance, and Corrina Corrina (which she developed at the Sundance labs). Jessie co-created and directed the series Little Voice with Sara Bareilles for Bad Robot and Apple TV. Among her other directing credits are Curb Your Enthusiasm and Love, the Coopers with Diane Keaton. Her writing credits include Step Mom, Because I Said So and The Story of Us directed by Rob Reiner. She wrote the musical Waitress with Sara Bareilles. It was the first Broadway musical created by an all-female team and ran for four years. Jessie directed Alice by Heart, which she co-wrote with Steven Sater with music by Duncan Sheik at the National Theater Connections Program in London and again at MCC in NYC. This year she will direct the premiere of Chadwick Stokes Folk Rock Opera 1972 and the film Norma with June Squibb and Jessica Gunning. She began her career as an actress at the Public Theater working with the experimental theater Mabou Mines and acting with the New York Shakespeare Festival. She also co-wrote the children's book Labracadabra. She is producing Brown Baby written by Nikesh Shukla and Himesh Patel. She has been the artistic director of the Sundance Labs Writers Lab.
Sara is an award-winning singer, songwriter, actor, producer, activist, and New York Times best-selling author whose accolades to date include two Grammy Awards, three Tony Award nominations, and three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. As a recording artist and songwriter, she has sold more than 3 million albums and 15 million singles in the U.S., and her songs have been streamed more than 3.5 billion times worldwide. On Broadway, she composed music and lyrics for Waitress, stepping into the lead role both on Broadway and in the West End. Other musical theater credits include her Tony-nominated performance as The Baker's Wife in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into the Woods, a song on the Tony Award-nominated score for SpongeBob SquarePants, and an Emmy Award-nominated appearance as Mary Magdalene in NBC's "Jesus Christ Superstar Live." She plays Dawn Solano on the Emmy-nominated musical comedy series "Girls5eva", the third season of which is streaming now on Netflix, and is currently at work on a musical theater adaptation of Meg Wolitzer's best-selling novel The Interestings.
Diane is the Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director of the American Repertory Theater and a Professor of the Practice of Theater at Harvard University. Broadway: A.R.T.-originated productions of 1776; Jagged Little Pill; Waitress; Pippin (Tony Awards for Best Revival and Best Director); Finding Neverland; The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (Tony Award for Best Revival, NAACP Award for Best Direction); and The Public Theater's HAIR (Tony Award for Best Revival). Other work includes: N/A (Lincoln Center); Carmen (Glyndebourne Opera Festival); Gloria: A Life; In the Body of the World (Off Broadway); Romeo and Juliet; Becoming a Man; The White Card (A.R.T.); Crossing (A.R.T./Brooklyn Academy of Music); The Donkey Show; and Cirque du Soleil's Amaluna. She was selected for Boston magazine's 2023, 2022, 2020, and 2018 lists of Boston's most influential people, the 2014 Time 100, and as one of Variety's Trailblazing Women in Entertainment for 2014. Upcoming productions include The Monkey King, by composer Huang Ruo and librettist David Henry Hwang at the San Francisco Opera in 2025.
Choreography includes Broadway's Chess, Once Upon A Mattress, Into The Woods, Tommy, Heart of Rock and Roll, Waitress, Mrs. Doubtfire, Les Liasons Dangereuse with Janet McTeer and Liev Schreiber, Waiting for Godot with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, West End's The Producers, Merrily We Roll Along (Roundabout), La Traviata (The Met Opera), Oliver (Encores), Lin-Manuel Miranda's 21 Chump Street for "This American Life" (BAM), The Public Theater's Twelfth Night and The Odyssey (Delacorte Theater), Assassins (Encores), Queen of The Night which garnered a Drama Desk Award. Lorin directed Candace Bushnell's one woman show, Is There Still Sex In The City (NYTimes Critics Pick), Joy at Laura Pels, Kill The Boy Band by Lowdermilk and Kerrigan, #Dateme at The Westside Theatre, Taste of Things to Come at Chicago's Nederlander Broadway, Swelling and Irritation by Jodi Picoult and Tim McDonald, Trails, Rodgers After Hammerstein (92Y Lyrics and Lyricists), and Beth Malone's Three Part Harmony. Lorin is currently developing Lauren Sandler's novel This Is All I Got with Kirsten Greenidge and Crystal Monee Hall, Begin Again with music by Train, and an immersive Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Ms. Latarro is a Drama Desk, Lortel, and Chita Rivera nominee. BFA Juilliard. MA NYU. Lorin performed in 14 Broadway shows and has traveled to India and Africa multiple times to work with The Gates Foundation in family health and planning. She is the founder of ArtAmmmo.org Artists Against Gun Violence as seen in the NY Times, PBS, Rachel Maddow, BBC.
We celebrate Adrienne Shelly as the writer of the 2007 film Waitress. An actor (Trust) and director (Waitress, I'll Take You There, Sudden Manhattan) for almost 20 years, she conceived the film while pregnant with her daughter Sophie (Lulu in the film), for whom she wrote it as a "love letter" in just two weeks. Adrienne's legacy includes The Adrienne Shelly Foundation, created after she died in 2006 to support women filmmakers. It has awarded 65+ production grants to talented women all over the world. Please visit adrienneshellyfoundation.org to honor Adrienne's memory and support ASF's critical artistic mission.
Abbey O'Brien is currently the Global Associate Director & Choreographer of Waitress the musical. Associate Director on the hit musical Moulin Rouge and the Associate Choreographer on the acclaimed Broadway show, Jagged Little Pill. Directing credits: Sylvia, Waitress, The Rocky Horror Show, Meet Me in St. Louis, 13 the musical, A Quarantine Cabaret, Goodbye New York. Up and coming: Never Be King, Gold Star. Choreography credits: Titanic, Extraordinary ( Directed by Diane Paulus), SUGARLAND (music video), The Late Show with Letterman, Jimmy Fallon, Dreamgirls, Smokey Joe's, Big Fish, Rock of Ages (Theatre Aspen), Mama Mia, American Idiot. Associate: Is There Still Sex in the City, Odyssey (Public Theatre), Elf (Paper Mill), Ragtime (Lincoln Center), Company, National Pastime (Bucks County), A Taste of Things to Come (Broadway Playhouse). Some of her favorite Performing credits: Spamalot (Broadway), Pal Joey (Broadway), Radio City Rockettes, SMASH (NBC). She is also the Director of Theatre at Perry-Mansfield. You can see some of her work at abbeyo.com
Scott has designed over 50 Broadway productions, receiving three Tony Awards for The Book of Mormon, The Coast of Utopia, and The Pillowman. Recently: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; The Prom; The Band's Visit (Tony nomination); Mean Girls (Tony nomination); Cirque du Soleil's Amaluna. Netflix: John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City; Oh, Hello. Drama Desk, Outer Critics, Bessie, Lortel, Broadway World, Hewes, Garland awards.
Screen: Obi Wan Kenobi, No Time to Die, Trust, American Gods, London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony (Emmy), Slumdog Millionaire (CDG Award), 127 Hours, Sunshine, The Extra Man, Cinema Verite (Emmy nom), The American, The Good Lie. Theatre: Straight White Men, Of Mice and Men, Hold on to Me Darling, Frankenstein, Macbeth, The Killer, Finding Neverland.
Over 100 Broadway shows including Chicago (Tony Award); The Scottsboro Boys; Title of Show; White Christmas; Sweeney Todd; Sunday in the Park... (2008, 2017); Annie (1997); Hello, Dolly! (1995); Fiddler on the Roof (1976, 1981, 1990). Other: Radio City Christmas Spectacular (1979-2006), Disneyland Fantasmic! Architecture: Tavern on the Green (2014), Feinstein's 54 Below. 2015 inductee Theatre Hall of Fame.
Brian Walters is a New York based Sound Designer and Sound Engineer working on Broadway, at Lincoln Center, and more. He has been a part of the Waitress family since its 2015 premiere, first as the original mixer and subsequently on the design team for several touring and international productions. Additional productions include 1776, Once, Bhangin It, Finding Neverland, The Heart of Robin Hood, Pippin, The Glass Menagerie, All the Way, and The Great Comet of 1812. Brian is also an accomplished guitarist and musician and can be seen performing with local New Jersey rock band, Mt. Feral.
Enjoying a 50-year career, starting in television. Mr. Ardia has designed and coordinated well over 100 productions. He is happy to be a part of this seasonal favorite ELF. Ragtime, The Kennedy Center; Cameron Mackintosh's Les Miserables, Toronto; Kiss of the Spider Woman; Starlight Express, Cinderella / Eartha Kitt. Mr. Ardia was mentioned recently on TCM for his contribution to the John Waters: Pope of Trash exhibit at the Academy Museum. Also, the author of Barbra Streisand in New York City, and currently At Sea with Patrick Dennis My Madcap Mexican Adventure with the Author of Auntie Mame.
Nadia is a NYC-based music director and arranger. She was part of the original creative team for Waitress, after having previously worked with director Diane Paulus on the Broadway revivals of Hair and Pippin. Together with Sara Bareilles, Nadia and the original Waitress band collaborated on orchestrations for the score, and played the show for the duration of its Broadway run. She is continuing her collaboration with Sara Bareilles on The Interestings, a new musical in development, which will have its world premiere at Berkeley Rep in January 2027. Nadia was the music supervisor, arranger and co-orchestrator for the new musical Wonder, with music by A Great Big World, which just finished its run at the American Repertory Theatre. She was also the music supervisor, arranger and co-orchestrator for the recent Broadway production of Real Women Have Curves. Nadia and her partner, original Waitress drummer Rich Mercurio, produced the music for Apple TV's animated series Central Park, and continue to produce music for various projects together. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College with a degree in Urban Planning.
Sara Bareilles, Nadia DiGiallonardo, Rich Mercurio, Lee Nadel, Yair Evnine, Rich Hinman, Meghan Toohey, Adam Kaufman and Jamie Edwards. With Sara Bareilles, the band engaged in a deeply collaborative process to create the arrangements for the Waitress score. A group that includes singers, multi-instrumentalists, writers and producers from all different corners of the pop and theatre world, they've each contributed their own unique ingredients to the pie.
150+ productions across the globe and 13 Artios Awards for Casting. Broadway/NY past and current productions include: Othello, Real Women Have Curves, A Wonderful World, Life of Pi, Romy & Michele, Chicago the Musical, Disney's The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, Hadestown, Lost in Yonkers, Great Comet of 1812, Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes, 39 Steps, Pippin, La Cage aux Folles. TV/Film: Netflix, 20th Century Fox, NBC, Lionsgate, Disney Channel. West End/U.K.: Hadestown, Sister Act, Menier Chocolate Factory. Tours: Peter Pan, 1776, Hairspray, Waitress, Urinetown, Girl From The North Country, Finding Neverland, Into the Woods, We Will Rock You. Regional: A.R.T., The Old Globe, Berkeley Rep, Bay Street, Goodspeed, Ogunquit Playhouse, Hollywood Bowl, McCarter, Signature. ARC, Part of RWS Global. castingbyarc.com @castingbyarc
Original motion picture produced by Michael Roiff / Night & Day Pictures
World premiere produced by the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard University, August 2, 2015
Diane Paulus, Artistic Director and Diane Borger, Producer
Peter Duchan, Script Consultant for A.R.T. Production