In 1959, two as-yet-untested stars made their Broadway debuts: Mary Rodgers, with a gorgeous score that put her on the map, and Carol Burnett, in her first stage role as the brassy, loveable Princess Winifred the Woebegone—or “Fred” to her friends. More than six decades later, musical theater legend Sutton Foster (The Music Man) returns to the City Center stage alongside an all-star creative team to recapture that same infectious energy and joy.
Led by Encores! Artistic Director Lear deBessonet (Into the Woods, Lionel Bart’s Oliver!) and with a new concert adaptation by Amy Sherman-Palladino (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Once Upon a Mattress sets an unapologetic free spirit loose in a repressed kingdom, reveling in Fred’s ability to charm and transform with willpower, honesty, and a little bit of help from her friends. Full of gloriously catchy melodies like “Shy” and “In a Little While,” this uproarious update of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Princess and the Pea” promises both classic charms and new delights.
If it’s 2,000 beaming faces aglow with musical comedy pleasure you’re looking for, head over to City Center this week or next to catch Once Upon a Mattress. Several minutes and three songs in, a pair of bright young lovers launch into a gently upbeat ballad duet called “In a Little While,” and all’s right in the world—or at least for the two hours you’re at Encores’ latest.
After suffering through Once Upon a One More Time last summer, I concluded that musicals about princesses had become a royal bore; no more singing and dancing tiaras for me, please. And yet Sutton Foster’s full-body comic onslaught as Winnifred the Woebegone in Once Upon a Mattress has restored my fealty to throne. Playing her first stage princess since the ogre-besotted Fiona in 2008’s Shrek, Foster musters every talented inch of her limber frame, rubber face, and iron lungs to generate waves of zany ecstasy in this delightful concert version for City Center Encores!
2024 | Off-Broadway |
Encores! Concert Revival Production Off-Broadway |
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