NEW YORK -- Forget about those Producers boys. Women are going to rule Broadway when Thoroughly Modern Millie, starring Sutton Foster and composed by Jeanine Tesori, struts its stuff on Broadway, starting preview performances on Tuesday, Oct. 16 with an official opening on Thursday, Nov. 15 at a Nederlander house to be announced.

What's more Gavin Creel ("Encores!" Hair) is playing Millie's love interest, Jimmy, and Angela Christian (Fame: The Musical) is taking on Miss Dorothy. Bells Are Ringing's Marc Kudisch is presently negotiating a Broadway reprise of his La Jolla Playhouse role as Trevor Graydon, Millie's boss.

Recent reports and Internet postings claiming that Andrea Martin (My Favorite Year) and Cheryl Lee Ralph (Dreamgirls) are playing Mrs. Meers and Muzzy, respectively, are not true, according to a press representative from the Pete Sanders Group, which denied that bit of casting rumor.

Producers of the jazz-age Broadway-bound show, led by Whoopi Goldberg, held a group sales promotion Monday, May 21 at Le Bar Bat. The site-specific choice of location, though certainly different, proved quite apropos for this new stage version of Millie, which looks and sounds to be one of the most joyous new movie-based musicals that's headed for Broadway.

The May 21 event also proved to be a very welcome and quite nervy introduction for Sutton Foster who plays the title role. Dressed in scarlet-red with jet-black hair bobbing, Foster performed five numbers from the show, choreographed by Rob Ashford with a mixed-race chorus, to five tunes, including "Thoroughly Modern Millie," "Jimmy," and "Forget About the Boy."

The show's director Michael Mayer predicted that Modern Millie is going to be the next big thing on Broadway. "But since I am the director of the show, I may not be very objective."

Whoopi Goldberg herself introduced Foster via a huge-screen video presentation that touted her talents as triple threat actress-singer-dancer, including excerpts from the La Jolla production and teasing glimpses of Foster as she trotted through Times Square.

The last time Theatre.com reported on the Broadway-bound Thoroughly Modern Millie, the musical was so successful at La Jolla Playhouse that it had been extended several times, causing some last-minute replacements. Harriet Harris, who plays an aggressive agent on the hit television show "Frasier," replaced Pat Carroll as Mrs. Meers for the final week of La Jolla Playhouse's world-premiere production.

To read more about the La Jolla premiere of Modern Millie, please visit this Theatre.com story: Sutton Foster's Thoroughly Modern Millie Debuts at La Jolla Playhouse.

Co-produced by film star Whoopi Goldberg, the Broadway-bound stage adaptation of the 1967 Universal Julie Andrews/Carol Channing movie-musical about 1920s flappers uses three songs from the film, plus some period standards. The rest of the 15-song score features original music by Tony nominee Jeanine Tesori (Twelfth Night, Violet) and lyrics and book by Dick Scanlan, based on the screenplay.

Set during the crazy 1920s, the movie is a jazz-age spoof. Millie goes to New York determined to find a wealthy husband and live happily ever after. She transforms herself into a modern woman, decked up in bobbed hair and short skirt and flat chest. But things don't quite turn out as she hoped. Millie falls in love with Jimmy, an attractive, funny but very poor young man.

Nevertheless, Millie goes after her boss, Trevor Graydon, a handsome, square and rich executive. Other interesting characters who figure in the movie are the sinister Mrs. Meers, who heads a slave organization, and the eccentric millionaire Muzzy Van Hossmere (Carol Channing in the movie). Elmer Bernstein's score received the Academy Award for Best Musical Score. Millie also marked the film debut of Mary Tyler Moore, who played Miss Dorothy.

The Broadway-bound musical, on the other hand, is its own show. Morris and Scanlan based their book on Morris' original screenplay.

"It's inspired by the movie," Scanlan said. "It's been so changed and rewritten. The worldview is similar, but actual plot details are different. Different people end up with different people. The Asian characters are different. They have bigger roles, and they play a much more important journey."

The music itself is also different. Two of the musical numbers ("Thoroughly Modern Millie" and "Jimmy") are lifted from the movie, and there are several standards from the 1920s. But about 70 percent of the stage musical's score is made up of original songs by composer Tesori and lyricist Scanlan.

"Jeanine Tesori wrote new material for the musical," Scanlan said. "I'm delighted by it. She's using our instruments from 1920s speakeasy New York. She's really basing our music to what happened in the jazz world during the 1920s, as opposed to a musical version of the 1920s, which we've been accustomed to. The music has not yet been orchestrated, but conceptually the sound is based on what actually occurred then. It's not a quaint, sweet jazz sound, but a hot, ragged, blazing sound, like horns of a taxi. It's unbelievably bold. It really reflects like in the early 1920s, which was very modern."

"One of Jeanine's gifts as a contemporary composer is that she's also a melodist," Scanlan added. "She likes sound that the ear can travel with and jump aboard with. During the 1920s, there was nothing sweet about life then. It was every bit as fast-paced and electric as it is now, if not more so. The show's music reflects that. It's created from that kind of energy because we don’t want to write pop ballads. Jeanine's music sets up a real high bar."