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It's Official! Sutton Foster to Return to Broadway in VIOLET; Show Set for Limited Run at American Airlines Theatre Starting in Late March
By: Robert Diamond Nov. 25, 2013
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It's Official! Sutton Foster is coming BACK to Broadway, as Roundabout Theatre Company has just announced that it will present two-time Tony Award winner Sutton Foster in a Broadway production of Violet (first seen as part of Encores! Off-Center concert series in 2013), directed by Leigh Silverman. Based on the short story "The Ugliest Pilgrim" by Doris Betts, Violet features music by Jeanine Tesori and book & lyrics by Brian Crawley. Violet will be produced in association with Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino, David Mirvish, Barry and Fran Weissler, Elizabeth Armstrong, and Mary Jo and Ted Shen.
VIOLET will play a 20-week limited engagement beginning previews on March 28, 2014 and opening officially on April 20, 2014 at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway (227 West 42nd Street).
The show will mark Sutton Foster's return to Broadway and Roundabout after winning the 2011 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical for her acclaimed performance as "Reno Sweeney" in Anything Goes. The full cast will be announced shortly.
The creative team includes Jeffrey Page (Choreographer), Joseph Joubert and Buryl Red (Original Orchestrations) and Michael Rafter (Music Director). The design team includes David Zinn (Sets), Clint Ramos (Costumes), Mark Barton (Lights) and Leon Rothenberg (Sound).
VIOLET tells the story of a young woman's quest for beauty amidst the image-obsessed landscape of the 1960s. Facially disfigured in a childhood accident, Violet (Foster) dreams of a miraculous transformation through the power of faith. Convinced that a televangelist in Oklahoma can heal her, she hops a Greyhound bus and starts the journey of a lifetime. Along the way, Violet forms unlikely friendships with her fellow riders, who teach her about beauty, love, courage and what it means to be an outsider.
VIOLET opened off-Broadway for a limited run at Playwrights Horizons on March 11, 1997. It won the Obie Award, Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical and the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical.
TICKET INFORMATION:
Tickets are currently available to Roundabout subscribers, and VIP Seats are available to donors in the Chairman's Circle. All other tickets will be available to the public in early 2014. For more information on subscriptions, VIP seats, or to sign up to be notified when tickets go on-sale to the public, visit roundabouttheatre.org or call 212-719-1300.
BIOGRAPHIES:
Sutton Foster (Violet). Sutton Foster is an award-winning actor, singer and dancer who has performed in 10 Broadway shows and originated roles in the Broadway productions of The Drowsy Chaperone, Little Women, Young Frankenstein, Shrek the Musical, and her Tony Award-winning performances in Anything Goes and Thoroughly Modern Millie. She was first seen on television on "Star Search" at age 15, and has more recently appeared in "Bunheads" (TV Critics' Choice Award nomination for "Best Actress in a Comedy Series"), "Psych", "Flight of the Conchords", "Law and Order SVU", "Royal Pains", and "Sesame Street". As a solo artist, Sutton has performed all over the country as well as internationally with her musical director Michael Rafter... featuring songs from her debut solo CD "Wish" as well as her follow up CD, "An Evening With Sutton Foster: Live at the Cafe Carlyle." She has graced the stages of Carnegie Hall, Feinstein's, Lincoln Center's American Songbook series, Joe's Pub and many others. In 2011 she received an Honorary Doctorate degree from Ball State University where she also is on faculty as a teacher and advisor to the Department of Theatre and Dance.
Jeanine Tesori (Music) has written four Tony-nominated scores for Broadway: Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center; Thoroughly Modern Millie (lyrics, Dick Scanlan); Caroline, or Change (lyrics, Tony Kushner); and Shrek the Musical (lyrics, David Lindsay-Abaire). The production of Caroline, or Change at the National Theatre in London received the Olivier Award for Best New Musical. Her first Off-Broadway musical, Violet, written with Brian Crawley, received the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1997. Her most recent, Fun Home (lyrics, Lisa Kron) made its premiere at The Public Theater this fall. A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck, a new opera with a libretto by Tony Kushner, was featured at the Glimmerglass Festival in 2011, and her opera The Lion, The Unicorn, and Me (libretto, J. D. McClatchy) premieres at the Kennedy Center in December. She composed the music for the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of Mother Courage, directed by George C. Wolfe, translated by Mr. Kushner, with Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline. Music for other plays include John Guare's A Free Man of Color for Lincoln Center Theater, directed by George C. Wolfe, and Romeo and Juliet, a gala reading, again with Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline. Film scores include Nights in Rodanthe with Diane Lane and Richard Gere, Every
Day with Liev Schreiber, and You're Not You with Hilary Swank and Emmy Rossum. She is the Artistic Director for Off-Center, a new Encores! summer series for the New York City Center. Ms. Tesori is a member of the Dramatists Guild. Most of all, she is the proud parent of Siena Rafter, a sophomore at LaGuardia High School for the Arts.
Brian Crawley (Book & Lyrics) is a playwright and screenwriter. He wrote the book and lyrics for Violet, which was mounted Off-Broadway by Playwrights Horizons in 1997, then remounted in a concert version in 2003 to help inaugurate their new theater. He also wrote the book and lyrics for A Little Princess (composer Andrew Lippa) which debuted at Theatreworks of Palo Alto in the summer of 2004. Other musicals he has written include Evangeline with Ted Dykstra, and Down There with composer Lewis Flinn. For the libretto of Violet, Brian won the Kleban Award. Prior to the Playwrights Horizons production, and on its behalf, Violet was given the Richard Rodgers Musical Production Award and an AT&T OnStage Award. Afterwards, besides a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical, Violet received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical over the year's Broadway offerings. Brian was introduced to Jack Hardy's Fast Folk songwriter circle by Dave Van Ronk. Several of Brian's recordings are in the Fast Folk Musical Magazine collection now administered by the Smithsonian. He is featured in the documentary One Night Stand, about one year's 24 Hour Musicals benefit. Brian's plays have been developed or staged at Lincoln Center, New York Theater Workshop, the National Alliance of Musical Theatre, and the Eugene O'Neill summer theater conference. He majored in Theater Studies at Yale and has an MFA in Acting from the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Brian is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
Leigh Silverman (Director). Broadway: Chinglish; Well; Violet (Encores). Recent Off-Broadway The Call (Playwrights Horizons); The Madrid (MTC); Golden Child (Signature Theatre); No Place to Go (Public Theater; Two River Theatre);In the Wake(Center TheatreGroup/Berkeley Repertory Theatre and The Public Theater, Obie Award, Lortel nomination); Go Back to Where You Are (Playwrights Horizons, Obie Award); From Up Here (MTC, Drama Desk nomination); Yellow Face (Center Theatre Group/The Public Theater); Coraline (MCC/True Love); Blue Door (Playwrights Horizons); Well (The Public Theater; Huntington Theatre; ACT); Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Second Stage Theatre). Recent regional: American Hero (WTF); Chinglish (Goodman Theater, Jeff nomination; West Coast/Hong Kong tour). This season: The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence (Playwrights Horizons) and Kung Fu (Signature Theatre).
Roundabout's 2013-2014 season includes Joshua Harmon's Bad Jews, directed by Daniel Aukin; The Old Vic Theatre Company's production of Terence Rattigan's The Winslow Boy, starring Michael Cumpsty, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Alessandro Nivola, Roger Rees, directed by Lindsay Posner; Sophie Treadwell's Machinal, starring Rebecca Hall and directed by Lyndsey Turner; Donald Margulies' Dinner with Friends, directed by Pam MacKinnon; Masteroff, Kander & Ebb's Cabaret, starring Alan Cumming, Michelle Williams, directed by Sam Mendes & Rob Marshall (co-director/choreographer); Tesori & Crawley's Violet, starring Sutton Foster, directed by Leigh Silverman; and Bekah Brunstetter's newly commissioned play, Cutie and Bear, directed by Evan Cabnet. Roundabout Underground kicks off their 7th season this fall with the world premiere of Too Much, Too Much, Too Many by Meghan Kennedy, directed by Sheryl Kaller.
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