Sutton Foster, SOMETHING ROTTEN's Brian d'Arcy James Named 2016 Sarah Siddons Award Recipients

Chicago theatre's Sarah Siddons Award has one of the more unusual origins among entertainment honors. The idea sprang sixty-three years ago when a group of dedicated Chicago theatregoers saw the film ALL ABOUT EVE, where Anne Baxter's Eve Harrington was awarded a statuette of the famous eighteenth-century Shakespearean actress Sarah Siddons. Seeing this tribute, those theatregoers not only created a real Sarah Siddons Society, but in 1952 they presented their first Acting Award, a replica of that same statuette used in ALL ABOUT EVE to Helen Hayes, one of America's premiere leading ladies.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that this year the honor will be presented to two Broadway favorites, Sutton Foster and Brian D'Arcy James, in a May 16, 2016 ceremony be presented by Chicago's Sarah Siddons Society on at Northwestern University's Pick Staiger Concert Hall.

Broadway star Sutton Foster, who burst onto the scene with her Tony-winning performance in THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, and nabbed her second Tony for ANYTHING GOES, will soon be seen starring in season two of TVLand's YOUNGER.

Currently starring on Broadway in SOMETHING ROTTEN, Brian D'Arcy James is a three-time Tony nominee. In 1989, as an undergraduate theater major at Northwestern University, D'Arcy James received a Sarah Siddons Society's Scholarship, now making him the society's first scholarship recipient to be so honored.

Sarah Siddons honorees include Beatrice Lillie, Deborah Kerr, Shirley Booth, Geraldine Page, Myrna Loy, Carol Channing, Celeste Holm, Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis, Colleen Dewhurst, Angela Lansbury, Julie Harris, Liza Minnelli, Bernadette Peters, Julie Andrews, Elaine Stritch, Chita Rivera, Patti LuPone, Barbara Cook, Audra McDonald, Bebe Neuwirth and Jessie Mueller. Visit sarahsiddonssociety.org

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The completely original, ten-time Tony Award-nominated new musical comedySomething Rotten!, directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon, Aladdin), with music and lyrics by Grammy Award winner Wayne Kirkpatrick and Golden Globe Award nominee Karey Kirkpatrick and a book by Karey Kirkpatrick and best-selling author John O'Farrell, is now playing on Broadway at the St. James Theatre (246 West 44th Street).

Something Rotten! stars three-time Tony Award nominee Brian d'Arcy James (Shrek), two-time Tony Award winnerChristian Borle (Peter and the Starcatcher),Tony Award nominee John Cariani (Fiddler on the Roof), Heidi Blickenstaff([title of show]), two-time Tony Award nominee Brad Oscar (The Producers), Kate Reinders (Wicked), Tony Award nominee Brooks Ashmanskas (Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me), Edward Hibbert (It Shoulda Been You), Gerry Vichi (The Drowsy Chaperone) and Michael James Scott (The Book of Mormon).