Sutton Foster with Seth Rudetsky

Broadway @ Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, Scottsdale, AZ, December 14, 2019

Reviewed by Lynn Timmons Edwards for Cabaret Scenes

Sutton Foster’s journey to Broadway and her current television star status is a story worth telling. The unscripted interview and pick-any-song-from-her-book format created by host/music director Seth Rudetsky shined a light on both Foster’s brilliance as a singer/actor and her amazing résumé.

According to Rudetsky, he flipped for Sutton when he subbed one night in the pit of the Grease national tour and has been her friend and fan ever since. That didn’t stop him from razzing her about her wardrobe choices, her history with Annie, or her attachment to singing Oklahoma!, which became funnier when she performed it as the encore. One of her funniest stories about playing Sandy in Grease was the close call that she might have to perform opposite her brother Hunter Foster stepping in one night as Danny. That led Rudesky to wing Summer Nights (Jim Jacobs/Warren Casey), which neither quite remembered, only to be rescued with the lyrics provided by an audience member’s phone. It was cabaret improv at its funniest.

Sutton delighted with a dozen songs, starting and ending with “I Get a Kick Out of You” and “Anything Goes” (Cole Porter). Her arrangements of “Down with Love” (Yip Harburg/Harold Arlen) and a medley of “Hey There” (Richard Adler/Jerry Ross) and “A Cockeyed Optimist” (Rodgers & Hammerstein) from her Live at the Carlyle CD were sassy and among my favorites. Her signature song, “Gimme Gimme” (Dick Scanlon/Jeanine Tesori) from her Tony Award-winning role in Thoroughly Modern Millie brought the audience to its feet.

The Scottsdale Center for the Arts will feature Seth with Audra McDonald on January 19.