By Leslie Simon

When we sat in on the first rehearsal for our current production of Waitress, we were delighted to hear Lighting Designer Jonathan Dunkle discuss his inspiration as a bit of a Waitress superfan. We learned a lot that gave us a deeper understanding of the show, something I know our audiences love to know too. Read on to learn all about Dunkle’s process and love for the show, and come see for yourself his beautiful work as Waitress plays in our Main Stage Theatre until Oct. 13. Photos by Amanda Tipton Photography.

How many times have you seen Waitress? Do you have any memorable stories about a particular performance?

Many times. The first was the out-of-town try out at the American Repertory Theatre in Boston in 2015.  Since then I’ve seen it on Broadway a bunch of times with pretty much every cast…the original cast starring Jessie Mueller, the remount when Sara Bareilles herself took the role of Jenna, and even the 2018 limited engagement when Sara Bareilles and Jason Mraz melted hearts as Jenna and Dr. Pomatter. (My partner and I saw that production on Valentine’s Day!)

What is it about this musical that has you coming back again and again?

At first it was the music and the story. Sara Bareilles is a natural story-song writer with the ability to hit the right emotional notes that feel right at home in American musical theatre. All of the songs in her catalog - from the bops to the ballads to the Broadway - hit the hearts and minds of listeners as stories worth celebrating, even when sometimes the story may not be all that easy.  Waitress is categorically a musical comedy, but it obviously portrays our three main characters in some awkward, if not downright uncomfortable situations. And with these songs driving these plot lines, Waitress is a story about the triumph, not the struggle.  

Then when Sara Bareilles herself played the role of Jenna on Broadway something magical happened to the show. She slides so naturally into that role and into that world - and it doesn’t feel like a concert delivery. It feels like a gift to everyone, including Ms. Bareilles herself.  In a nod to the lyrics of “Everything Changes,” Sara Bareilles on stage as Jenna quite simply is “every right thing in its right place.”

Perhaps the most fun is watching Sara Bareilles on stage as Jenna receiving – from other characters – emotional deliveries of the songs that she wrote! That lucky symbiotic lightning-in-a-bottle experience makes Waitress perpetually special to this day. You can view this magical phenomenon in close-up on the recently released pro-shot film version of the Broadway production. In fact, whether you make it to the Arvada Center or not, do your life a favor and watch that film.

What is your process for creating the lighting of this production? 

Well, the job of the theatrical lighting designer can be explained in three steps, in order of importance: Make sure the audience can see the world of the play; make sure the lighting makes sense in the world of the play; and when you can, use lighting to enhance the world of the play.  

In our Waitress, the world of the play is split into three categories. Each has distinct lighting treatments:  

First, the everyday reality of the diner. Large windows and a big sky outside, and hanging pendant lamps inside motivate the warmth of the interior.  Also, the set designer gave me a lot of fun neon signs to play with.  Our diner feels very realistic and very familiar, and our secondary locations (the doctor’s office, Jenna’s apartment, etc) are treated similarly.  

Second are Jenna’s reveries - when she is lost in her thoughts, her worries, and her dreams.  These are times where the music and the choreography and certainly the lighting take us dramatically out of reality. Tight spotlights and graphic pools of light with sharp edges define the boundaries of her momentary escapes. Saturated washes of color on the stage and slightly unnatural (but still very pretty) colors on the sky background take us someplace completely different.  

Third and maybe the most fun are the musical numbers. Fans of this show know and love these songs. They celebrate and have expectations for these songs. So when called for, the lighting heightens things with musical theatre magic tricks that are sometimes very noticeable and sometimes very subliminal. In any case, the lighting helps deliver these songs with life and color and energy and joy.  

How do you add your own flavor to something that you have seen quite a few times?

That is a great question - sometimes I don’t know until we are in it. But by nature, every version of a show is different.  Each production has a new creative team of directors and designers and actors all with good ideas. And sure, it’s true that sometimes the best ideas may resemble what you saw on Broadway because those are the best ideas and it’s hard to escape them. But sometimes that’s okay, because with a show like this you are aware that a lot of people know the show and will come with certain expectations, and it’s not a bad thing to be a crowd-pleaser.  At the end of the day, we are all collaborating to create our best possible version of what we think this show is supposed to be. Maybe my familiarity with this material helped our company arrive at those answers more quickly, maybe it didn’t. Certainly knowing all of the music, the characters, and the plot inside and out makes it a little easier for me to do my job. But I never felt like we were following an instruction manual for how Waitress should be put together.

Is there anything you are especially proud of with this production that our audiences should look out for?

I think it’s how successful we are as an early original regional production of a show with music so well known that means so much to so many people who have only known it from Broadway, and the Broadway film, and the soundtrack. As I said before, Waitress is a show with a devoted fan base with certain expectations. I guarantee you’ll get a healthy dose of the show you know and love, but there is also a mix of some brilliant new interpretations of elements that are somewhat adjacent to the original, and they’re all just as sweet and they all work beautifully. I promise Arvada Center audiences are going to love Waitress and …”want the whole thing”.... maybe more than once.