The Broadway restaging of Waitress the Musical opened tonight at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City, with the cast celebrating being the first show to open since the COVID-19 pandemic caused theatres to close. The show was dedicated to Nick Cordero, who passed away in 2020 from the virus.

Sara Bareilles spoke at curtain call saying, “What an extraordinary night! I felt like I was had to throw-up the whole time! This has been unbelievable – thank you so much. Thank you for bringing theatre back into these beautiful houses, doing it safely, this has been a wild, wild journey back to this stage and we are so grateful to be here. And we wanted to take a moment to honour one person who is part of our Waitress family, who is not here with us anymore, Nick Cordero.

“He’s a member of our original Broadway company and he is still a beautiful spirit and a beautiful soul and we hold him very, very near and dear to our hearts, and we are so lucky to have his beautiful wife, Amanda Kloots, with us tonight.”

Sara introduced Amanda and told her, “You are amazing. You have walked through this terrible time with so much grace and so much wisdom and so much vulnerability and that is a gift to every single person who can receive it from you, so thank you for being you. As you heard in the show, we honour Nick by baking him into the musical, because he’s a beautiful songwriter as well and he has a song called ‘Live Your Life’ and there’s a pie on our pie board called ‘A Big Ol’ Slice Of Live Your Life Pie’ and that will be put into every production of Waitress all over the world forever and ever.”

Amanda said she thought there had been a world record for standing ovations, with so many happening throughout. She said, “Nick loved Broadway, he loved music and he loved acting. I think he’ll be with me every day, but he’ll be with y’all every night! I am so happy that Broadway is back, congratulations and thank you so much!”

The cast then sang “Live Your Life” together with Amanda – see photos in our gallery.