'Waitress' Sneak Peek: Sara Bareilles, Jessie Mueller & Cast Discuss Life, Love And Pie

By Billie Rama, Managing Editor, CBSNewYork.com

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Sugar. Butter. Flour.

Those three words echo throughout the new Broadway musical Waitress. The show stars TONY award-winning actress Jessie Mueller with an original score by five-time Grammy nominated singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles.

Waitress tells the story of Jenna, a small-town waitress who works at a diner and bakes uniquely named pies as an escape from her reality and a loveless marriage. A gifted pie-maker, Jenna saves up her tips in order to enter a pie baking contest in hopes of winning so she can finally leave her abusive husband and her life as she knows it.

PHOTO GALLERY: Waitress Sneak Peek 

But Jenna -- played by Mueller -- gets pregnant and suddenly finds herself more stuck than ever before. Until a fateful visit to the gynecologist changes everything.

"The story is a journey of her coming to terms with where's she's come in her life and really digging deep to find out how she can overcome some of the things that she's been faced with and how she can move forward and get to a better place," Mueller told CBSNewYork.com at a press event Thursday.

"It's about friendship, it's about relationships and it's ultimately about the love of oneself and having the fight to find it," Bareilles added.

The musical is based on the 2007 movie written by and starring the late Adrienne Shelly. It had a sold-out preview run in Cambridge, Mass this past summer. That's where Mueller said she saw firsthand how the show touched people and believes Broadway will have the same effect.

"The show is going to have a big impact on people," Mueller said. "It's about love, it's believing that you're worthy of love. If you're here on this planet, you're worthy and deserving of love. And I think that is a very, very powerful message. It's heartfelt, and it's funny and it's smart and it's moving and I think people are just going to be delighted with it."

"This is an intimate story about complicated people. We hope to make you laugh, but ultimately for me I want people to come away with their heart being opened a little bit," said Bareilles.

"I hope audiences will come to Waitress and leave the theater feeling, 'It's never too late. It's never too late to look at your life and say, 'I have the courage to get out of something that doesn't feel right,'" said Tony award-winning director Diane Paulus.

Waitress, a "new Broadway musical baked from the heart," begins previews at the Brooks Atkinson Theater Friday, March 25 and opens April 24.