Foster to Perform at Reprise Theatre, 10/4

Reprise Theatre Company presents two one-night only special events: An Evening with Sutton Foster for one performance only on Monday, October 4, 2010 at 8:00 pm, and Betty Buckley in Concert with Seth Rudetsky on Monday, February 21,2011 at 8:00pm. Both events will be presented at UCLA's Freud Playhouse. An Evening with Sutton Foster Betty Buckley in Concert with Seth Rudetsky are the latest in Reprise Theatre Company's tradition of presenting Broadway stars in concert, which have included Patti LuPone, Carol Burnett, Ben Vereen, Kristin Chenoweth, and Brian Stokes Mitchell.

Tickets for both events are now on sale to subscribers, and subscriptions are still available at reprise.org, or by calling 310-825-2101. Tickets for An Evening with Sutton Foster priced at $85 and $115, and for Betty Buckley in Concert with Seth Rudetsky priced at $95 and $150, go on sale to the general public on Tuesday, September 7 at 10:00am. For tickets, please call the UCLA Central Ticket Office at 310/825-2101 or visit www.reprise.org http://www.reprise.org. 

Reprise Theatre Company is headed by Artistic Director Jason Alexander. Christine Bernardi is Managing Director and Gilles Chiasson is Producing Director of Reprise Theatre Company. 
 
Reprise Artistic Director Jason Alexander says, "We are thrilled to announce these two very exciting, one-night-only events at Reprise!  From her Tony Award-winning turn in Thoroughly Modern Millie to her Tony-nominated performances in Shrek and The Drowsy Chaperone, Sutton Foster is one of the most in-demand musical theatre performers in the world. We are especially excited to welcome Ms. Foster to our stage before she joins the Roundabout Theatre Company's landmark revival of Anything Goes next year. As one of the American Theatre's quintessential leading ladies, Tony Award-winner Betty Buckley has been dazzling audiences across the globe for decades. Ms. Buckley's incomparable presence is a humbling addition to our Monday night event series - we are honored to be able to present her in concert in early 2011."

Sutton Foster is currently starring in the new Off-Broadway play, Trust, at Second Stage. She recently starred on Broadway as Princess Fiona in Shrek: The Musical, for which she was honored with Tony and Drama Desk nominations, and the Outer Critics Circle Award.  Prior to that, Sutton was Inga in the Mel Brooks musical, Young Frankenstein, Janet Van De Graaff in The Drowsy Chaperone (2006 Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations, LA Ovation Award) and Jo March in Little Women- The Musical (2005 Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Award nominations).
 
She is the recipient of the 2002 Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Astaire Awards for her performance as Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie, a role she created in the 2000 La Jolla Playhouse premiere.  Other Broadway credits include Les Miserables, Annie, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Grease!. 
 
Regional productions include What the World Needs Now (Old Globe), Dorian (Goodspeed), The Three Musketeers (San Jose Musical Theater), Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Sally in Me and My Girl (both at Pittsburgh CLO).  She has toured nationally in The Will Rogers Follies, Les Miserables, and Grease!.  She has appeared as Svetlana in Chess in Concert and as the "I'm the Greatest Star" Fanny Brice in Funny Girl in Concert, both Actors Fund of America benefits. 
 
On television, Sutton recently guest starred on "Law & Order: SVU."  Other appearances include the Disney Channel's "Johnny and the Sprites" and several episodes of the HBO series, "The Flight of the Conchords."  Sutton has performed in concert at Lincoln Center's American Songbook series, at the Café Carlyle, with Peter Nero and the Philly Pops, with the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, at Feinstein's, Joe's Pub, and at concert halls and theaters across the country.
 
Recordings include The Maury Yeston Songbook (PS Classics), Jule Styne in Hollywood, and the original cast recordings of Thoroughly Modern Millie, Little Women, The Drowsy Chaperone, Young Frankenstein and Shrek.  Her debut solo CD, Wish (Ghostlight Records), was released last year to critical acclaim and is available in stores.  Earlier this year, she completed a sold-out limited run of the highly-anticipated City Center Encores! production of Stephen Sondheim's Anyone Can Whistle, starring as Nurse Fay Apple. She will star as Reno Sweeney in the 2011 Roundabout revival of Anything Goes.  She is a proud teacher at New York University and Ball State University. Visit her website: www.suttonfoster.com <http://www.suttonfoster.com> .

Betty Buckley won a Tony Award for her performance as Grizabella, the Glamour Cat, in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats. She received her second Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a musical for her performance as Hesione in Triumph of Love, and an Olivier Award nomination for her interpretation of Norma Desmond in the London production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard, which she repeated to more rave reviews on Broadway.
 
Her other Broadway credits include 1776, Pippin, Song and Dance, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Carrie. Off-Broadway credits include White's Lies, Lincoln Center's Elegies, the original NYSF production of Edwin Drood, The Eros Trilogy and Juno Swans.  Regional credits include Gypsy, Threepenny Opera, Camino Real and Buffalo Gal.  She starred in the London production of Promises, Promises.
                                                                      
She co-starred in M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening released in June 2008.  Other films include her debut in Brian de Palma's screen version of Stephen King's Carrie, Bruce Beresford's Tender Mercies, Roman Polanski's Frantic, Woody Allen's Another Woman and Lawrence Kasden's Wyatt Earp.

On television, Buckley appeared in "The Pacific" for HBO and appeared on the 2006 Kennedy Center Honors.  She has also starred for three seasons in the HBO series "Oz" and as Abby Bradford in the hit series "Eight is Enough." She has appeared as a guest star in numerous television series, miniseries and films for television including "Evergreen," "Roses For the Rich," the CBS series "Without a Trace" and "Law & Order: SVU" for NBC.

Buckley has recorded 11 CD's, among them Quintessence and Betty Buckley 1967 and the Grammy Nominated Stars And The Moon, Betty Buckley Live at the Donmar.
 
She received her second Grammy Nomination for the audio book The Diaries of Adam and Eve.
                                                                                                                   
For over thirty-eight years Ms. Buckley has been a teacher of scene study and song interpretation, giving workshops in Manhattan and various universities and performing arts conservatories around the country.  She has been a faculty member in the theatre department of the University of Texas at Arlington, the Terry Schreiber Acting School in New York City and currently teaches in Fort Worth, TX.
 
In April of 2009, Ms. Buckley received the Texas Medal of Arts Award for Theater and was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame in 2007.

Seth Rudetsky is the afternoon Broadway host on Sirius/XM radio. He is currently featured on the Emmy-Award-winning Kathy Griffin Show on Bravo and recently starred in They're Playing Our Song opposite Sutton Foster on Broadway in a benefit for the Actor's Fund. As a musician, Seth has played piano for more than a dozen Broadway shows including Ragtime, Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera and was the vocal coach for the "Legally Blonde" reality show on MTV. He was the Artistic Producer/Music Director for the first five annual Actors Fund Fall Concerts including Dreamgirls with Audra MacDonald (recorded on Nonesuch Records) and Hair with Jennifer Hudson (recorded on Ghostlight Records, Grammy Nomination). As a comic, he won the title "Funniest Gay Male in NY" at Stand-Up NY, had a long-running show at Caroline's Comedy Club and spent two years as a comedy writer on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" (three Emmy nominations). ). As an actor, he played Arnold in the Gallery Players production of Torch Song Trilogy, had roles on "All My Children" and  "Law and Order: C.I." and in 2007 made his acting debut on Broadway in The Ritz directed by Joe Mantello for The Roundabout Theater playing Sheldon Farenthold and singing "Magic To Do" in a (devastating) unitard. He's written the books The Q Guide To Broadway and Broadway Nights, both in their fourth printing. Broadway Nights was just released as an audio book on Audible.com featuring himself, Jonathan Groff, AndRea Martin and Kristin Chenoweth. Last summer, he was in London and Liverpool filming a British TV show and spent August performing his new show, Seth's Broadway 101, to sold-out audiences in New York. Currently, he writes a weekly column at Playbill.com and is constantly uploading his video deconstructions on his website,  www.SethRudetsky.com <http://www.SethRudetsky.com> .

About Reprise Theatre Company

Since its inception in 1997, Reprise Theatre Company has been a focus of the Los Angeles musical theatre community, producing productions of great American musicals, and a wide variety of concerts, staged-readings, special events and outreach programs.  In May 2007, Jason Alexander became Artistic Director.  Christine Bernardi is Managing Director and Gilles Chiasson is Producing Director of Reprise.
 
Since its inaugural production of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "Promises, Promises," which starred Mr. Alexander, Reprise has brought to the stage vibrant productions from all eras of American musical theatre including the Gershwins' "Of Thee I Sing" and "Strike Up the Band," Cole Porter's "Anything Goes," and Rodgers and Hart's "The Boys from Syracuse" and "Babes in Arms," Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Carousel," as well as Richard Rodgers' later "No Strings."  The "Golden Era" has been well represented - Burton Lane and E.Y. Harburg with "Finian's Rainbow," Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe with "Brigadoon," Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green with "On the Town" and "Wonderful Town," Irving Berlin with "Call Me Madam," Robert Wright and George Forrest with "Kismet," both of the Richard Adler and Jerry Ross musicals "The Pajama Game" and "Damn Yankees," Johnny Mercer and Gene dePaul with "Li'l Abner," Jule Styne with "Bells are Ringing," and Frank Loesser with "The Most Happy Fella" and "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying."
 
Musical theatre reached a new peak of popularity in the sixties, along with new creative talents, and Reprise has presented shows by many of them including Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt with "The Fantasticks," Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick with "She Loves Me," Gerome Ragni, James Rado and Galt MacDermot's "Hair," Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone with "1776," Charles Adams and Lee Strouse with "Applause," Stephen Schwartz with "Pippin," Cy Coleman with "On the Twentieth Century" (libretto by Betty Comden and Adolph Green), "City of Angels" (lyrics by
David Zippel), and "I Love My Wife" (libretto by Michael Stewart), Jerry Herman with "Mack and Mabel," Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's "Once on This Island," and four Stephen Sondheim musicals - "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," "Company," "Sweeney Todd," and "Sunday in the Park with George."

Many of the great stage performers working today, as well as those who make their residence primarily in Los Angeles, have appeared in Reprise shows including Scott Bakula, Christine Baranski, Brent Barrett, Orson Bean, Jodi Benson, Stephen Bogardus, Dan Butler, Len Cariou, Carolee Carmello, Vicki Carr, Patrick Cassidy, Anthony Crivello, Jason Danieley, Lea DeLaria, Cleavant Derricks, Manoel Feliciano, Rodney Gilfry, Kelsey Grammer, Josh Grisetti, Harry Groener, Bob Gunton, Sam Harris, Gregory Harrison, Simon Helberg, Mimi Hines, Judy Kaye, Jane Krakowski, Marc Kudish, Ledisi, Vicki Lewis, Judith Light, Rebecca Luker, Eric McCormack, Maureen McGovern, Joey McIntyre, Donna McKechnie, Andrea Marcovicci, Marin Mazzie, Julie Migenes, Karen Morrow, Burke Moses, Kelli O'Hara, John O'Hurley, Ken Page, Robert Picardo, David Hyde Pierce, Larry Raben, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Roger Rees, Charles Nelson Reilly, Cathy Rigby, Alexandra Silber, Douglas Sills, Rex Smith, Brent Spiner, Lea Thompson, Steven Weber, Lee Wilkof, Ruth Williamson, Marisa Jaret Winokur, Lillias White, Fred Willard, and Rachel York.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.

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