Pictured: Quinn Corcoran and Kaitlyn Davidson in FST’s Waitress. Photo by Sorcha Augustine.

Though premiering on Broadway fewer than 10 years ago, something feels decidedly throwback about Waitress. Maybe it’s the stage, decked out like a ‘50s diner, all vinyl booths and checkered tiles. Maybe it’s the broad comedy, with characters playing to the audience as though the fourth wall were more a window. Maybe it’s the uniforms.

Most likely, it’s the infectious joy that reminds you of a time when musicals were king—and why.

A stage musical adaptation of the 2007 film that was not a musical, the curtain rises on our hero, Jenna, played wonderfully by Kaitlyn Davidson, singing about sugar, flour, and eggs. And as a smalltown waitress with the best pies around and just about the worst husband, it’s understandable that she’d sing about the former. Together with her two compatriots—the headstrong Becky and the delightfully weird Dawn—she holds down the day-to-day in a diner with a cantankerous line cook and an owner who makes brusque look kind, letting her dreams collapse like a pie that forgot its filling.

But when a handsome new doctor comes to town…

High-energy and charming from the get-go, Waitress succeeds in being both comfortingly familiar and absolutely absurd—like a Hallmark movie directed by Monty Python and with much better music. It hits the beats you expect, but perhaps not exactly in the way you’d think. And as the narrative spirals further and further from normal, the antics only escalate. It’s slapstick. It’s silly. It’s hilarious. (Tip of the hat to Nick Cearly for the show’s most unhinged—and perhaps bravest—performance.) Is it believable? Who cares? Was that a highly choreographed ode to infidelity? Maybe!

Like all the best comedies, Waitress also isn’t afraid to get serious at times and drop the slapstick for sincerity. These moments give performers like Davidson a real chance to shine, belting out emotional pleas with power and passion, and they make the comic highs that much sweeter. It’s a delicate balancing act—especially when topics like domestic abuse come into play—but one at which the play largely succeeds, with maybe an awkward bump or two.

All told, under Ben Liebert’s direction, it’s no surprise that Waitress has been selling out shows.

Currently onstage at Florida Studio Theatre’s Gompertz Theatre, Waitress runs through January 5.

Pictured: Quinn Corcoran and Kaitlyn Davidson in FST’s Waitress. Photo by Sorcha Augustine.