Tony-Award winner Sutton Foster will star in Stephen Sondheim's and Arthur Laurents' Anyone Can Whistle, the final Encores! production of the 2009-10 season, playing for five performances beginning April 8, 2010. Ms. Foster will play Nurse Fay Apple, the role originated by Lee Remick.
Sutton Foster won the Tony, Outer Critics, Drama Desk and Astaire Awards for Thoroughly Modern Millie, and has been nominated for Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Shrek (Winner: Outer Critics Award), The Drowsy Chaperone, and Little Women. Her other Broadway credits include Young Frankenstein, Les Miserables, Annie, Scarlet Pimpernel and Grease! She has performed concert versions of Chess, Funny Girl (Actors Fund) and the American Songbook Series at Lincoln Center. On television, Ms. Foster has appeared in "Johnny and the Sprites," and "Flight of the Conchords." Her debut CD, Wish, is now available.
Anyone Can Whistle, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents' 1964 experimental satire of any and every target on the American cultural scene of the moment - conformity, psychology, race relations, greed, religion and politics ? divided the critics, thrilled the emerging counter-culture, baffled the masses and closed after a brief run, becoming an instant legend that has grown over the years as Sondheim's reputation has soared. The title song and "With So Little to Be Sure Of" have survived as cabaret classics, but the rarely-heard complete score is a riot of jazzy, show-biz razzmatazz, waltzes, gospel numbers and Broadway pastiche, as full of variety and surprise as the show that gave it birth. Anyone Can Whistle opened on Apr 4, 1964 at the Majestic Theatre, starring Angela Lansbury, Lee Remick and Harry Guardino, directed by Arthur Laurents, and ran for 12 previews and 9 performances. Anyone Can Whistle will run April 8 - 11, 2010.
The Newman's Own Foundation is a proud sponsor of Encores! The Newman's Own Foundation is an independent, private foundation which derives its grant-making income from royalty payments received in conjunction with the sale of Newman's Own food products. Since the inception of Newman's Own in the early 1980s, over $250 million has been donated to thousands of charitable organizations worldwide.
The season is also made possible, in part, by the Stephanie and Fred Shuman Fund for Encores!
New York City Center Encores! (Jack Viertel, Artistic Director; Rob Berman, Music Director) has, since 1994, celebrated the rarely-heard works of America's most important composers and lyricists. Conceived as concert versions, each Encores! season gives three scores the chance to be heard as originally intended by their creators. Over the years, Encores! has presented the works of the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, Bock and Harnick, Burt Bacharach, Kander and Ebb, Comden and Green, and many others. The program is the recipient of a special 2000 Tony
Honor for Excellence in the Theatre, as well as an Outer Critics Circle Award, Lucille Lortel Award and Jujamcyn Theaters Award.
New York City Center (Arlene Shuler, President and CEO) has long been known and beloved by New York audiences not only as one of the City's preeminent performing art institutions but also as an accessible and welcoming venue for dance and theater. New York City Center produces the Tony-honored Encores! musical theater series, and is home to some of the country's leading dance companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Paul Taylor Dance Company and Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company, as well as Manhattan Theatre Club and Pearl Theatre Company. In 2004 New York City Center launched the acclaimed Fall for Dance Festival, continuing to fulfill its mission to make the arts accessible to the broadest possible audience. In 2006, New York City Center formed partnerships with both London's Sadler's Wells Theatre to facilitate the exchange of innovative dance works, and with Carnegie Hall to work together on exciting new programming initiatives between the two neighboring institutions. In 2007 New York City Center introduced the Encores! Summer Stars series with the critically-acclaimed production of Gypsy¸ starring Patti LuPone, which subsequently enjoyed a successful run on Broadway, and which was followed by Damn Yankees starring Sean Hayes and Jane Krakowski. and this past summer's The Wiz, starring Ashanti.
