Sara Bareilles Reflects on How ‘Waitress’ Changed Her Life (Exclusive)

“And I know in due time, every right thing will find its right place,” the lead character of Jenna sings towards the end of the acclaimed Broadway musical Waitress.

Turns out, that’s not just a line Sara Bareilles wrote, but a lesson she’s also learned during Waitress‘ long journey.

As a filmed version of the stage hit is set to make its streaming premiere on Max Feb. 14, the singer-songwriter, 45 — who scored and starred in the musical adaptation of the late Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 movie of the same name — tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview that the entire process has been a “labor of love.”

“This movie, this musical, just the whole journey of this piece has been a remarkable experience, says Bareilles. “What I love is that after all this time, we’ve ended up where we’re supposed to be. We were always just like the little engine that could.”

She continues, “This movie was very handmade. We were all hands on deck for this, and it really was an extraordinary experience. I’m so proud of it, and I’m glad that it’s captured forever and that a wider audience is going to get to experience what happened on stage on Broadway.”

Written by Jessie Nelson, Waitress follows waitress and pie maker Jenna Hunterson as she enters a baking contest in hopes of winning the large cash prize, which would allow her to escape her loveless marriage. When Jenna finds out that she’s expecting, she enters a secret romance with her gynecologist Dr. James “Jim” Pomatter and grows closer to her coworkers-slash-friends. 

The musical was directed for the stage by Tony Award winner Diane Paulus. It opened on Broadway in 2016 with a starry cast that featured Jessie Mueller as Jenna, Drew Gehling as Dr. Pomatter, and Keala Settle, Kimiko Glenn, Christopher Fitzgerald and the late Nick Cordero in the ensemble. 

Four Tony nominations followed, including a best original score nod for Bareilles.

Bareilles stepped into the role of Jenna for a limited engagement on Broadway in 2017 and then returned in 2018 and 2019. She made her West End debut as a replacement in the role in London in January 2020 with the late Gavin Creel, and then reprised the character in its 2021 Broadway re-staging to celebrate the theaters reopening after the COVID-19 pandemic.

That was also when the movie was captured, by director Brett Sullivan — the filmmaker behind the live recordings of Billy Elliott, Newsies and Kinky Boots.. And following its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2023 and a subsequent limited theatrical release, it’s now finally made its way to streaming.

Needless to say, Waitress has played a huge role in Bareilles’ life.

Going back to the beginning, the two-time Grammy winner says she was “a novice in terms of being a musical theater artist” when she first started working on the production. “I had some anticipatory feelings that it was going to feel really redundant and really boring really quickly,” she shares.

She couldn’t have been more wrong. “One of the things I learned early is just how facile the experience is and how different it is from show to show. Even when doing the same show two times in a day, both shows can feel very different from each other.”

“It’s what I love about theater,” she continues, “and that’s why I love the effort to capture that and bring it to a wider audience because only so many people can fit in those four walls.”

As for returning to play Jenna on Broadway and in the movie, the Girls5eva star tells PEOPLE that it was a “really emotional” experience, particularly because of its timing after the pandemic.

“To stand in a room with a lot of people, to not have a mask on, to be telling an emotional story and to be making people laugh — all of those things that we take for granted in our jobs,” the singer says. “Even just getting to go to work in a building with people that you weren’t in a pod with at that time, when we filmed this, it was really a remarkable thing.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Filming occurred over four days, Bareilles explaining to PEOPLE that they recorded portions with and without audiences. Her favorite memory from the filming process involved coming back together with castmates Charity Angél Dawson and Caitlin Houlahan, who both starred in the original production.

She recalls her time on stage with the other two actresses, saying she enjoyed “getting to just feel joyful and laughing with my friends.”

The 2021 production also saw Bareilles sharing the stage with her real-life partner Joe Tippett, who played the role of Jenna’s abusive husband Earl in the show’s pre-Broadway run and reprised the character in other productions. “This project also brought me my future husband, which is really a beautiful thing too,” she says. “I love this cast. They’re all dear friends, and I just feel like it’s almost like watching a family get together.”

Now, the Grammy winner is ready for audiences to watch the filmed live production with their own loved ones on its Valentine’s Day release date.

“Something we learned as we watched how audiences reacted to the material over time, even just from the stage musical, is that this show is comfort food,” she explains. “People want to share it with their loved ones. Girlfriends want to share it with each other. Partners, of course, want to share it with each other. Mothers and daughters. It just feels like a real story about connection in a lot of different ways.”

The musical features several songs that have found their way into the musical theater lexicon, including “She Used to Be Mine” and “Everything Changes” — both of which are sung by Jenna. The two songs also happen to be favorites of Bareilles. 

“‘She Used to Be Mine’ was the first song that I wrote for the show,” she says, “and I did a lot of trying to invoke the spirit of Adrienne Shelly, who tragically was not with us to see the musical come to fruition.”

The other song, Bareilles shares, “is a song about having to trust that every right thing will find its right place, and that the only constant is change. And I think that feels really resonant with what I see happening in the world right now.”