SUTTON FOSTER INTERVIEW May 10, 2002, in her dressing room at the Marquis Theater.

  
You’re already part of a showbiz legend, but I’m interested in filling who the real person is along with the wonderful story you’ve been in this year. You grew up in Augusta GA…?
I was born and raised in Georgia. My father worked for General Motors so we traveled a lot. We probably never spent more than 3-4 years in a town. I was born in Statesboro, lived in Athens and Augusta til I was about 13.

Then you ended up going to high school in Troy, Michigan. Do you have other siblings besides Hunter?
Just us.

Wonderful names. What are your parents names?
Bob and Helen. I think because their names are so common and run of the mill that they wanted to name their kids something different. My mom always said she hated her name so she wanted to name her children something really exciting. I’m not sure where Hunter came from, but my name was a character in a movie, she can’t remember which one. 

Age diff. between you and your brother?
Six years. Five and a half.

You had yr stage debut at age 10 in Annie? Playing…
Annie. That was the first time I’d ever really sung in public. Before that it was just yodeling in the house or singing in the bathtub and driving everybody crazy. I started dacne first when I was about 4 and doing recitals and things. Then they were having auditions at the community theater in Augusta for Annie, and they needed dancers for the orphans, they had me sing, and next thing I knew I was playing the lead and singing, and I was bit.

So you started training by taking dance lessons at 4. Did you take voice lessons?
Not really. It was more for fun. Hunter and I both really enjoyed it. When we were growing up it was part of our lives. I never really studied, other than dance lessons, until college.

Where’d you go to college?
Carnegie Mellon. But only for a year. I left. I wasn’t ready to learn anything. 

Sounds like you hit the road early.
I was touring in Will Rogers Follies at 17. Did that, and after Will Rogers I wanted to be a normal kid, I was gonna go to college and try to become a real actor. But I was real young.

I was thinking it’s hard once you’ve got a real job getting paid it’s hard to go back to school.
Yeah, it was weird, people telling me things I already knew. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I moved in with my parents, who were living in Memphis at that time. I left college and waited tables and worked at a children’s theater and was looking at schools to go into education. I wanted to be a teacher. I was there for 8 or 9 months. Really made quite a life there, made a lot of friends I still have, really fell in love with teaching and working with kids. Then I flew up to NY to visit Hunter, and I auditioned for replacements the national tour of Grease, I went to an open call, and in four days I was in San Francisco. So the universe wanted me back in the business, even though I was trying desperately to get out of it, or running away from it. We all go thru that time in our life -- you have two paths, one looks hard and uncertain, and the other might be more secure, and everything took me to the wild path.

Although you must have wanted it because you went to that open call.
There was a part of me that wanted to be back into it. I was on tour with Grease for a year and a half. They had me come into the NY company for three weeks, as a replacement playing Sandy. Hunter was in the show.

Who was in it at that point?
Sheena Easton and I forget who the guy was. Hunter and his wife Jen were in it. The three of us were doing a show together. It was cool, cuz like my curtain call for Grease, we’d all come down, and the person on my right was my brother, for my first curtain call on Bway. And the fact that we’re both in shows on Bway this season, it’s like we’re doing it together.

Do you remember yr first Bway dressing room?
It would be that one. Not very exciting. It was nice. I had my own dressing room. I was a replacement. My first original show was Annie, the 20th anniversary, that was at the Martin Beck, I was with Kelly Swaim, all the ensemble girls were on the same floor, we had these tiny little rooms, stacked next to each other.

Like the Hotel Priscilla.
Had a fabulous dresser, on the fourth floor. Nothing like this. This room is bigger than my apartment.

Really? It’s quite amazing. You have fish.
These are Sam and Henry.

You’ve got a mirror on one wall, a futon sofa, an overstuffed chair, a gigantic walkin closet. So your first show in NY was Grease, then Annie, then Scarlet Pimpernel?
Now that was a big ol’ chorus dressing room, 15 or 12 of us in one room. Sometimes I get really lonely being by myself, and I’m so busy in the show cuz I’m onstage so much. So before the show some nights I’ll go up and visit the girls just so I can be around other girls. When I did Pimpernel, I’m still best friends with the people I sat right next to. You get so close.

Were you in that for the whole run?
I was in it for six months. Then I did a show out at the Old Globe, What the World Needs Now, or Doesn’t Need Now. That was a great experience. I was playing one fo the lead roles. It was going to come to NY….

To the Roundabout…
And they pulled it at the last minute. That was a good experience, cuz it taught me a lot -- sometimes things don’t work out. It was the first new show I’d been involved with from the get-go, and you’re signing the lease on your new apartment, and your dream’s about to come true, then when it doesn’t happen, you go, oh no.

What songs did you sing?
Some GREAT Burt Bachrach songs: I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself, Anyone Who Had a Heart, I Say a Little Prayer, Alfie, Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head, Knowing When to Leave.

How many people were in that?
Four leads and an ensemble of 10 or 12. 

Was it a story or a revue?
It was a story, a Mamma Mia type thing, but not as successful.

Or we’d be seeing it now, and you wouldn’t be doing this. After that didn’t happen…
I came back and got Les Mis. I did Les Mis for 18 months. 

You started as…
I was hired as ensemble for Bway, and did that for about 7 months, then was on the road for a little over a year playing Eponine.

You were understudying when you were in the ensemble here?
Uh huh, and I did play the role for like a weekend for some press stuff, but primarily was on the road with it.

I saw you did a bunch of workshops.
The real treat of an actor…I’d done so many revivals that I wanted to work on new projects. There’s something about being part of a process, working with a creative staff, working on something new is what we all strive to do. I got to work on some wonderful things. Then of course to be part of Millie in the La Jolla incarnation was fantastic.

How did that happen? Tell me.
I’d been a part of one of the readings probably about 3 years ago, while I was doing Les Mis. A reading here in NYC, just as part of the ensemble, it was a weeklong reading. 

Where?
At Chelsea Studios, just a space. I fell in love with it. What a wonderful idea. It’s my cup of tea. I love old-fashioned musical comedy. It’s the reason I wanted to be in musical theater. I thought I’d love to be part of this show.

Was Jim Carnahan casting it at that point?
Yes. He had cast me in the Burt Bacharach show. When that didn’t succeed, I came to audition for the role of Millie for this reading. I had a terrrrible audtiion, I was lousy, and Jim Carnahan said you might want to offer her ensemble because I think she might have something to offer, they said OK. I’m so thrilled. I was part of the ensemble for the reading. It was great, I got to meet everybody.

Was Kristin Chenoweth in the reading?
It was Kate Jennings Grant in the reading of that one. Then they were having auditions for the workshop that Kristin Chenoweth ended up doing. I was auditioning for Millie, and I got down to the very very end, I was on the road with Les Mis, I was flying in for auditions, oh my gosh, but I didn’t get it. But I told them I just want to be part of the show. I’d be willing to take a leave of absence or leave Les Mis to be a part of Millie. But it didn’t work out. Then they were having auditions for La Jolla, and they brought me back in again to audition for Millie, and I got right down to the end, and I’m not a great auditioner, I could never really show them what I could do.

What happens for you?
I get so nervous, so it’s … also I think especially when you want something so bad, you try too hard. I was trying so hard that I was never at ease. So I didn’t get it. My agent called. I said, you know what, I’d be willing to do ensemble, please call and see if they’d let me in. He called Jim Carnahan, they said oh my gosh, yeah, we’d love it. So I decided to do that. About a month before I left for La Jolla, Les Mis called to see if I wanted to play Eponiine on Broadway. I was like -- security, a role I’d already done but on Bway, being in NYC, another opportunity might arise OR ensemble in a new show that could possibly go to Bway, but no guarantees, and I decided to do Millie. It was a hard decision. My agent said, I think you’re making a mistake. I don’t know. I said, I just think my gut says I really believe in the show, there’s something about it, I want to give it a shot. And the fact that I’m sitting here today…it’s all surreal.

You were playing Ethel Peas, and then ensemble, but it was a much smaller cast.
Yeah, I was part of the opening number, the speakeasy, the steno pool, Muzzie’s party, Forget About the Boy, all the ensemble stuff. Thrilled.

And understudying Millie.
Yeah. Then about a week before we started previews, there was one of those strange circumstances. The girl who was playing Millie had gotten sick, they asked me to step in for her during rehearsals, I ended up having to learn the show in like 3 days, we did a full run-thru, and I think…she ended up having to leave the show, and they wanted me to take over the role. It was very very…

Where were you when Michael Mayer called?
I was in my apartment in La Jolla. It was on that Friday after I’d already been rehearsing for her for 3 days and I was already preparing myself to go back to the ensemble. Cuz once you have a taste of something, it’s hard to go back, but I was like, I have my job to do, I wanted to be prepared if she got sick. I never in a million years would imagine I’d get the call I got. It wasn’t part of my agenda. I was thinking, Maybe I’ll get to go on once, wouldn’t that be cool. He called and told me, Erin had to leave the show and they wanted me to play the role of Millie and the role is yours if you want it. I went, like, [in shock] and then I started crying and literally couldn’t stop crying for a couple of hours cuz I was so scared [she laughs nervously] and confused and I didn’t know how to feel. We were starting previews in a week, we had 5 weeks of rehearsal. I was like, you’re making a mistake, what are you doing. But then there’s a part of me thinking, I wanted this role so bad. But what a weird way for this to happen, how am I supposed to deal with it, I was so worried about Erin, I wanted to make sure she was OK, and I wanted to make sure the show was all right and that I didn’t let anybody down and that I was up to the challenge and all these people believing in me. It was wild. La Jolla was a blur after that day. I was thrust into this position. It was WILD. Wild. Then at the end of the run they asked me to do the role here. I didn’t quite realize everything. I prepared myself to a point, but you don’t quite know everything that goes into this experience, being a lead on Bway. As a kid you just see the glamorous side, the accolades. You don’t know how hard it is.

What did you find?
Well, it’s like in rehearsals and previews, it was all about the work and trying to do a good job and your health and stamina and trying to find your pace. The one thing I didn’t really prepare myself for was the criticism and the press, the ups and downs of that. I didn’t prepare myself for that.

Tell me about that.
You…it’s hard when something that’s so close to you and so important to you, something you believe in so much can be criticized. Good or bad. I’m not talking anything specific, I’m saying the good things and the bad things. Then you go, Oh, how do you deal with it? As a performer and as a human, for something you’ve worked on so hard, for your performance to be criticized, not to take it personally, try to find that balance, to still feel good about what you’re doing and to really find the truth within yourself, and who are you supposed to listen to, and how much does it really matter. I didn’t think about that. I prepared myself for opening. I didn’t prepare myself for any of this.

So it’s wild! The awards, and the luncheons -- I’m like omigod.

Even if you’d gone to 4 years of Carnegie Mellon, they wouldn’t have taught you about that.
No! No one talks about it. It’s all positive, positive, positive, positive, posititive, and then it’s like -- Awwwwww. How do you…? You don’t know what to expect. This month is crazy, leading up to the Tonys.

So tell me -- there are days that turn out to be big days, certainly in the media mentality, and it sounds like from your experience too. All the preparations up to opening night, and the next day is when the reviews came out, and that’s another experience. How did you experience that day?
I didn’t know how I was going to react to the reviews. I didn’t know how I was going to treat them, if I was going to read them or not. The opening night was one of the best nights of my life. I was relieved and thrilled and magical. The party was crazy and meeting all these people, it was unbelievable. I have pictures of me, I look like my eyeballs are going to pop out. And my boyfriend and I walked home, and before we went to bed he pulled up one of the reviews online, and it wasn’t a positive one, and we both went to bed a little deflated. It had tainted the evening. In a way we were, like, I wish we hadn’t read anything, cuz you walk home like, we’re untouchable, we’re on top of the world. Then all of a sudden there’s a sledgehammer on your head and you’re like, Oh, nooooo. The next day you read one, then you want to read a good one, and the first three I read were awful, and I thought, oh no! Then I was, I need validation that I’m not this horrible actress. Then all the pressure of the show came rushing into me, and I thought, Oh no, I’m playing the lead and I’ve let everyone down. By the end of the day we realized we had far more good than bad, it ended up being a really good day, but the only things you listen to are the loops of the bad things going thru your head.

Then about five days ago I decided I’m not reading anything else. It was taking away my power. I felt like the show and I don’t deserve to doubt myself. With criticism it’s hard. It’s human nature to criticize, and people are curious, and of course you go to bed dreaming of the glowing review that will, I don’t know what. But reviews are a very small part of what we do up there on the stage.

It sounds like it was a real initiation for you.
I’m so glad I did it. Now I don’t want to read anything, esp with the Tony stuff. I’ll wait and read our interview sometime later. I don’t know, it’s a weird thing. I think every actor has to go through it. It’s a tricky business, and in a way I’m glad that I’m going thru it now in such a big way and realizing things that I didn’t realize. I’m growing so much as a human and learning so much.

You ask some good questions -- actors ask, how do I know what to make of this, how do I hold my own opinion. Sounds like you learned something.
Yeah. Now I’m at a place where I just want to do a good job and feel good about what I do. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. I’m on Bway. Our cast album is coming out June 11. I’ve never been on a cast album -- well, Scarlet Pimpernel you can maybe hear me belting in the background. This is an unbelievable experience and I don’t want anything to taint it. 

How was the day of the Tony nominations?
Well, I went to bed that night. My boyfriend and I talked, and I was prepared not to get a nomination. The reviews helped me with that. You go to bed, everything’s gonna be great, then you’re like Oh No! So I’m like all right, I have perspective, I’m in reality, I was like, I’m prepared to not get a nomination, I’m prepared for everything. We weren’t gonna wake up at 8:30, but then neither of us could sleep.

What’s yr boyfriend’s name
Christian. I remember in the middle of the night, I hear him setting the alarm. He gets up at 8:20. He’s more excited than I am. The coolest thing is that he’s like a Millie geek, he loves the show so much. He’s so proud of me.

Is he an actor?
He’s an actor.

What’s his last name?
Christian Borle. He’s just been … I don’t know how anybody could put up with me, everything that’s going on with me. I couldn’t have done it without him. [They just celebrated their first anniversary.] 

So he got up at 8:20, turned on the TV, he’s over there flipping the channels, I’m still in bed, I crawl to the end of the bed, and we see Jennifer Jason Leigh and Steven Weber on NY1, and the first name they said was mine, because they started with best actress in a musical, and I was the first on the list. I was like, OK, great, got that out of the way. I was relieved and excited.

I think the coolest thing about the day was all the phone calls I got. People from all over the country. Emails galore, my cel phone, my home phone, just tons.

Who was most surprising to hear from?
Oh my gosh. I’m trying to think. I got emails from old friends from high schools’ parents emailing me, parents of college friends sending me an email saying, Can you send our firm a head shot? I’m like, you’re such a nerd -- I had pork chops at my house, I can’t send you a head shot. It’s so weird. It’s incredible. 

And like Christian and I looked at each other and jumped up and down. I got more phone calls the day the Tony nominations came out than I did opening night. The Tonys is that thing, when I was in high school I didn’t pay attention to openings of shows, I paid attention to Tony Awards and cast albums.

You watched the Tony Awards on TV?
Starting when I was 14. That’s what taught me about theater, what to go see, or what I would go buy. I would buy the cast albums.

What was yr first cast album?
Probably Les Mis. I was addicted to Les Mis. The fact that I did it….you put some shows up on a pedestal.

So when you were 14 you watched the Tony Awards the first time. What won?
I don’t remember. I remember the Phantom year. I remember Michael Crawford’s speech, what he said, he said my life is so crazy right now I feel like I’m gonna get run over by a truck. I remember Daisy Eagan’s speech. I remember Secret Garden, Miss Saigon, Once on this Island, no, was that that year? One great great year with all these wonderful things. I had the Miss Saigon album, Once on This Island, Secret Garden, Into the Woods, Phantom, Les Mis, any show that came thru Detroit, I went and saw. I remember the Will Rogers Follies year, when it won, cuz it was up against Saigon and it won. I remember Lea Salonga and I think Jonathan Pryce won. I remember they did "Favorite Son" on stage, this whole thing, slapping chest, I was like 16, watching it, I said "I could do that" to my mom, the next summer I auditioned for Will Rogers and I was doing it. So the Tonys was my gateway to the Bway community, and that’s really what…people hear you’re nominated for a Tony, it’s like, you’ve made it. I’m so, like, Millie Millie Millie, tunnel vision. In a couple of years I’ll look back. It’s a weird balance to try to stay focused and humble and do your show and stay healthy, and then wanting to enjoy everything. Don’t get your hopes up, keep reality in perspective and all those things. It’s a strange seesaw and roller coaster of emotions.

I hear you say Stay healthy, so it sounds like that’s a concern for you.
Yeah, vocally and stamina.

You have a big voice. Do you have to do special things to take care of it?
Oh yea, lots of things. I’m really possessed by my voice lately cuz the show’s so demanding. I have an incredible voice teacher, Joan Later, who I work with, all sorts of things I do. Very strict warmup I do every day, I’m on vocal rest a lot. Roll on balls. I do crazy things.

You roll on balls? Up and down your back?
On my stomach.

To open up your diaphragm?
Yeah, I’ll be on the floor. I steam, I’m addicted to little Starburst sucky things, I’m always having candy backstage, I drink tea and water.

You’re drinking tea now?
Yeah, ginger tea. Good for your tummy. I have a terrible nervous stomach. That’s something nice and juicy to write about. I’ve had an upset stomach for about five months.

How is it now?
It’s the same. It’ll get better after June 3. 

To go back, to training, you said you went to Carnegie Mellon for a year, did actor training?
Musical theater training. This prior year, I’ve been taking voice for the past couple of years, now studying very … every week.

Before that you’d just been doing shows.
Yeah, a lot of my training was on the job training. The past year has been to prepare for this, cuz I knew how demanding. I was in acting class, private acting lessons, trying to take dance lessons when I could and vocal performance lessons too.

I’m curious to go back to that period between La Jolla and Bway. Michael said 70% of the show changed, and they did this unusual thing of asking you not to take any jobs in NYC. How was all that?
It was good. I’d been working so steadily for so long that I’d missed out…I was only in school for a year, and I was working working. So I had about 10 months when I wasn’t working, I was doing little workshops here and there. It was nice, I was taking class, preparing for the show, preparing for opening night, preparing to take responsibility.

Someday you’ll teach your own workshop on dealing with the reviews.
Yeah, Dark Friday, all right, here we go.

Good workshop.
Yeah, how do you prepare your ego. Ego 101.

For 10 months, did they pay you a stipend or something?
I don’t know if you wanna say anything about that, but they took care of me very well. With each postponement, my unemployment would run out. It was great, I met my boyfriend and we had time to create a relationship in NYC. We had fun, we were able to go on vacation, I was able to have a social life, I was able to go out on a Saturday night for the first time in my life. We’re entertainers, so we’re other people’s entertainment on a Saturday night. I have no social life now. Hopefully it’ll come back.

After June 3.
Yeah, it’s kind of the golden date for all these Tony nominated shows. I was talking to somebody else at the Drama League luncheon. Neither of us had any clue that this time would be so crazy.

All this is extra, all these interviews and lunches.
And it’s all fun. But at the same time, it’s a…the thing that gets me is I get overwhelmed, I have to take it day to day, minute to minute, hour to hour. If I look at that calendar on the wall, I see all the things written, there’s no way I’m going to be able to handle it all: we’re doing the Rosie show again, there’s the Drama Desk Awards, there’s the Manhattan Theater Club gala, there’s the Tony brunch, Outer Critics, some other things, some more interviews, so every day I get another little piece of paper. When the press guy comes in, I’m like, what is it? 

Postponing your real life until all these things get out of the way.
Yeah, but it’s worth it. It really is. If I keep remembering that. I can’t believe what I do. When I go out on stage every night, that’s ultimately what’s really important. I’m living a fairy tale. I’m living a dream. Period.

Michael said that a lot of the changes in the show between La Jolla and here was building the character around you. Seeing it a second time I was thinking about modern, developing an image of the modern woman, not your usual ingenue, I’m curious to know how that character was built and shaped around you, how that was molded for Bway -- esp the contrast between Millie and Dorothy as two different kinds of young women.
I think the one thing of Sutton, of me, that they really wanted to capitalize on is my dorkiness, my goofiness. They wanted to let that come thru Millie. She’s a dork, this girl from Kansas, she’s a dork. Her ideals are strong but they’re a little messed up: this is the way I’m gonna live my life, I’m gonna marry rich and live happily ever after. She falls on her face a million times.

How do people know that you’re a dork?
It’s pretty obvious, I always feel like. I don’t try to be anything but me. It’s so fun to play a character that isn’t typical ingenue, whatever that means. Doesn’t have to be pretty, doesn’t have to fit into a little box. She’s erratic and can be simple and sweet and sincere, and can be extremely demanding and falling on the ground.

Michael would say, Do that dorky thing you do?
Or say like in the middle of the rehearsal I would do something new and he’d encourage that side of Millie to continue to grow. It’s fun to have a leading lady who’s not your run of the mill character. She’s got a million different… definitely contrasted to Dorothy. She comes from Kansas, milking cows, running to escape a destined life she wants to break free from. 

What about the modern thing?
Millie strives to be that ideal of what she sees as up to date, follow the course of what will lead her to happiness. Modern equals happiness, but then thru the play realizes that love equals happiness. I don’t know if it’s modern, modern business, modern technology, maybe modern isn’t always a good word. The one thing we really worked on was that tenacity of a girl from nowhere wanting to make a name for herself. One thing part of the show is we all have that moment where we were first in the city if we weren’t raised here, coming from nowhere…that first image of being in the city, how you felt, the decisions you’ve made. Those two paths I was talking about, the uncertain scary path or the secure boring path, which one do you take. All of us ultimately who are here in the city took the scary path, you know, or we wouldn’t be here. It’s like, we’ve all had that experience. We’ve all gone thru the unknown. I will not settle for …me Sutton, I will not settle, period. I will strive only to do the best that I can. I don’t want to be … as far as relationships go, I don’t want to settle. I have tenacity and fire like Millie does. Not as much. I wish I could be like her.

I guess you fake it enough.
I’m a good faker.

People talk about the similarity to Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Burnett, did you always get that growing up?
Mary Tyler Moore, a lot. The eyes, the teeth. And the hair. I did a show where I had her curled under hair, I was 15, people would say Mary Tyler Moore. Carol Burnett, I’m so flattered. I think she’s amazing. Her show was my favorite. I want them to make a DVD of her finest moments, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

Were there moments you were channeling her?
I wish I could channel her! I’d love to meet her. I dunno, I think they’re just influences. You watch enough of something, it gets in your bones. You follow yr instincts.

Are both your parents alive?
Yes. They’re coming to the show this weekend.

Who’s the most amazing person you’ve met thru this?
Whoopi Goldberg.

Interview copyright 2002 by Don Shewey. All rights reserved.