OH, I’VE GOT PLENTY OF SUTTON
Rounding out Hobby Center‘s trio of Beyond Broadway Series concerts following Adrienne Warren, Sutton Foster descended on a rather enthusiastic crowd Friday evening April 4 for an intimate show of songs and stories. The two-time Tony Award-winner, for Thoroughly Modern Millie and Anything Goes, has an impressive resume from The Great White Way, including starring roles in The Drowsy Chaperone, Young Frankenstein, Shrek the Musical, Violet, The Music Man, Sweeney Todd and most recently, Once Upon a Mattress, just to name a few. For those television audiences fans, Foster is best remembered from the “cancelled far too soon” cult classic Bunheads and Younger from Sex and the City creator, Darren Star. Surprisingly, the chanteuse elected to ignore most of her familiar previous songbook, choosing instead a collection of classics and soft rock.
Strutting confidently to center stage, she opened her show with “Something’s Coming” from the Broadway classic, West Side Story. With her accompanist and arranger, Michael Rafter, by her side on the piano, Foster playfully introduced herself with a simple “My name is Sutton” before launching into an ethereal rendition of “Pure Imagination” from Willie Wonka & The Chocolate Factory.
Bouncing from screen themes to showtunes, Foster mentioned “fifteen years ago I played Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes on Broadway. Ten years later I played the same role in London.” Skipping the more familiar songs from this classic, she sang from “the great Cole Porter” one of his very best “I Get a Kick Out of You” and the lesser known “Don’t Look At Me That Way.”
Adorned in sky high silver stilettos “that hurt my feet, but look good” and a black beaded dress, Foster looked very much like a “big city girl” when sharing tales of growing up in the South. She said she was “born in Georgia, I’m a Southern girl” and entertained with a story of saying “git vs. get” during show rehearsals. She also shared she felt just like the “Hang in There” cat from the popular internet meme, back on stage after a rough six weeks with laryngitis. Her struggle might have been real, but it was barely noticeable. She ended this portion of her set with “Stars and the Moon” by Jason Robert Brown.
Next up, the working mom shared anecdotes about her eight-year-old daughter, Emily, while singing the 2012 song “It’s Raining Tacos” by Parry Gripp. At that whimsical song’s conclusion, she dead-panned, “I’m a two-time-Tony Award-winner.” After the giggles died down, Foster next turned the song “What Are You Gonna Do” into an exasperated parental lament, inserting “Emily” into every verse. Highly relatable to all in attendance with precocious little ones at home.
The Music Man brought Foster back to Broadway after the eighteen-month COVID shutdown. She shared the show put her at odds with her parenting responsibilities. Foster “really had opposite schedules with her daughter,” so she would Facetime from her dressing room while applying stage makeup and hair. She concluded the “Emily” themed portion of her show with the ballad “Goodnight, My Someone” from the show.
Foster has also played a princess or two in her career, including Princess Winnifred from Once Upon a Mattress and Princess Fiona from Shrek the Musical. These super unconventional sovereigns were both uninhibited and one of a kind, the former making original actress, Carol Burnett, a star back in the 1950s. Once Upon a Mattress was recently part of The Encores! Series at the New York City Center. Starring Foster, she requested “one of a kind writer” Amy Sherman-Palladino, of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Gilmore Girls and Bunheads fame to update the script for a more sophisticated 2024 audience. Like myself, Foster shared she isn’t enamored with shows where the female protagonist is singularly on a quest for matrimony, prompting the more contemporary rewrite. The cast recording for that show has also recently been released, for those not in the know.
As a product of The 70s, Foster shared she grew up with an 8-Track before launching into the 1981 Dan Fogelberg ballad “Same Old Lang Syne.” Stating it was “one of my mom’s favorites,” her nostalgia was visibly palpable. Next grabbing a chair and a bag, Foster sat on the edge of the stage with a microphone and a craft project. While singing “Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que sera, sera)” Foster explained she is into crochet, not knitting. “We are like The Jets and Sharks” when explaining the difference. Playfully mocking the name of the venue (“It is ‘Hobby Center’ after all”), she explained the blanket she was working on is called The Carlyle Blanket, named after the famous New York Rosewood Hotel performance space, The Carlyle. As a child, she started with cross-stitch, the “gateway craft” and then asked a member of the audience for a color suggestion. After hearing “blue,” Foster added another few rows of blue yarn to her blanket while singing the John Denver classic “Sunshine on My Shoulders.” She ended that segment promoting her book Hooked: How Crafting Saved My Life and gave an autographed copy to the audience member who suggested the tone.
Foster concluded the evening with a pair of aptly titled ditties; “Goodnight But Not Goodbye” and “Till There Was You.” Thanking her daughter during her final bows, “Emily thanks you for sharing me.” Ending with a joke, “I’m going back to my hotel to watch The Traitors (the murder mystery game), Sutton Foster again proved herself highly relatable, enjoying trash reality television to unwind as well.
The Beyond Broadway Series has been an unmitigated hit and I am hoping this milieu continues. Peeling back the “show” to an intimate evening with performer and audience has been such a captivating and unparalleled experience. A ninety-minute respite from the world showcasing class, grace and unmitigated talent. Brava.
