Writer Laura Hankin loosely based the story to this film on her own experiences. She was in high school when she was cast as the lead in her school's musical stage production at the same time her own mother was getting sicker. The musical in which she was cast was not "Waitress" as it is in this film, but "Moby Dick: The Musical". She became inspired to make her experiences into a movie after having seen the film Eighth Grade (2018).
The filmmakers had three rules for the stage musical featured in the film: It needed to have a female lead, she needed to have an emotional musical number to sing, and there needed to be some kissing. Writer Laura Hankin had a difficult time finding a musical that met those three rules, but eventually realized that the Broadway musical production of "Waitress" did.
When writing the spec script for this film, Writer Laura Hankin incorporated the musical "Waitress" into the story, but was unsure if the film, should it go into production, would be able to secure the rights to the play. As a precautionary measure, Hankin wrote her own musical to be incorporated into the script in case the rights to "Waitress" were not secured. By her own admission, Hankin said that the original musical that she wrote was not very good. Once Co-writer and Producer Jordan Horowitz signed on to do this film, he had heard about Hankin's original musical, and asked her if she would like to use "Waitress" instead, to which Hankin instantly said "Yes, please!".
The high school is Ridgewood HS,Ridgewood NJ. called Westridge in the movie.
Laura Hankin: As a high school English teacher. Hankin wrote the story and co-wrote the screenplay to this film.
