American Idol season 5 runner up Katharine McPhee is bound for Broadway.
The actress/singer will make her debut on the Great White Way in the lead role of Jenna in Waitress beginning April 10. She’s taking over the role for the show’s composer Sara Bareilles, in a limited engagement at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre through June 17.
Prior to actually being cast in a Broadway show, Katharine played a musical star on television. For two seasons on the NBC musical drama Smash, she played Karen Cartwright, an aspiring actor from Iowa vying for the role of Marilyn Monroe in the fictional musical Bombshell. Katharine performed songs from Bombshell in a one-night-only concert at Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre in 2015.
Katharine currently stars in the CBS series Scorpion, now in its fourth season.
Based on the 2007 film and with a book by Jessie Nelson, Waitress tells the story of a Southern diner employee who dreams of escaping her abusive marriage by channeling her passions into her inventive pies—and an affair with a new-to-town doctor. The cast currently includes Drew Gehling as Dr. Pomatter, Tony nominee Christopher Fitzgerald as Ogie, Joe Tippett as Earl, NaTasha Yvette Williams as Becky, Caitlin Houlahan as Dawn, Lee Wilkof as Joe, and Benny Elledge as Cal.
The casting solves this 3 week old Instagram mystery, where it was revealed Katharine was headed to a mystery show on Broadway.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BeN1NvVBmC_/?utm_source=ig_embed
Look. Katharine with a pie!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfLxIOGg7Fu/?taken-by=katharinemcphee
