Sunday, April 21, 2002

NEW YORK -- A talented performer is pulled by a sharp-eyed director from the chorus line and offered the title role in a new Broadway musical. She bursts into tears. Cue orchestra -- and start the tapping.

In a Cinderella tale that uncannily parallels "42nd Street," Sutton Foster was understudying the lead in "Thoroughly Modern Millie" last year, during its pre-Broadway tryout at San Diego's La Jolla Playhouse. The original leading lady, Erin Dilly, backed out of the project late in rehearsals, and Foster had a week and a half to step into Millie's flapper-era shoes.

Now she's brought her star turn to Broadway.

"Director Michael Mayer's offer came out of left field," Foster recalls. "I didn't know how to feel. I was completely shocked. I was terrified. I was worried. I was excited. I sobbed for about four hours." Then she went to work.

Millie, a small-town girl from Kansas, moves to the Big Apple in search of fortune and excitement. Nearly the same could be said for Foster, an unknown who is being touted as the new It Girl at the Marquis Theatre, where the musical opened Thursday.

"It would be too corny if it weren't the truth," Mayer says. "You understand in watching Foster's transformation (from an understudy to a star) why those clichés exist. But in every cliché there's a nugget of truth, and certainly that has been borne out here."

The decision to stick with Foster, instead of hiring a television star or a box office name, took place during the show's La Jolla run. The producers took Foster aside after one performance and told her that they wanted to commit to her to play on Broadway. In exchange, they asked her not to take on any other projects.

"Our experience at La Jolla was such a proving ground," Mayer says. "It was monstrous -- the stress and the roller coaster ride. I just thought that if (Foster) can get through each nightmare, learning the show, taking on all the changes we were throwing at her -- if she can handle all of that and deliver a great performance, Broadway will be a piece of cake."

"Thoroughly Modern Millie" is a madcap satire about a secretary who encounters a cast of oddball characters in her search for a mate. It's a dizzy celebration of jazz-age New York and the city's enduring capacity to attract scores of bright-eyed youngsters looking to find their way in the world.

"It would be very peculiar indeed if when the curtain went up Millie was being played by Jennifer Love Hewitt," quips Dick Scanlan, the show's book writer and lyricist. "It would be strange if the one character the audience already knew is the character who is supposed to be unknown. Millie is like Dolly in 'Hello, Dolly!' or Fanny Brice in 'Funny Girl.' It's her play. She's the motor of the show. ... If you are not going to honor that, we should just call it 'Thoroughly Modern.'"

In her dressing room at the Marquis, the 27-year-old Foster says she's grateful that "the producers are giving a no-name a chance."

"For a lot of performers in this show, this is our first real big break," she adds. "I'm thrilled the producers ... trust the material and the show. They're not relying on star power to carry the show. Millie is one of the most demanding and challenging things I've ever done in my life."

Like her older brother Hunter Foster, a Teaneck resident who performs nightly in the Broadway hit "Urinetown," Foster found out at a very early age that she could sing. She made her stage debut at 10 in a local theater production of "Annie" in her hometown of Augusta, Ga. But while her brother had more of a Southern upbringing, Sutton grew up in Troy, Mich., where she danced and sang in high school productions like "The Sound of Music" and "Camelot."

Her first professional break was in the national tour of "The Will Rogers Follies," when she was 17 and still in high school. Broadway beckoned soon enough: Foster landed ensemble roles in "The Scarlet Pimpernel," "Les Miserables" and the 20th anniversary Broadway production of "Annie."

"Hunter and I weren't a show-biz family," Foster says, laughing. "We weren't like 'The Fosters! Here we come.' We were just normal dorky kids who thought it would be fun to venture into theater. We did two shows on Broadway: 'Grease!' for three weeks. ... We overlapped in 'Les Miz' for three performances. He was leaving to go do 'Footloose,' and I was going in to understudy for Eponine. ... Hunter and I love to entertain."

Foster comes across as a gawky heap of sunny warmth and idiosyncratic charm. With large almond-shaped eyes and shoulder-length dark hair, she has a wholesome Midwestern appeal, but her strong resolve is evident. The show's creators capitalized on her sense of goofiness as they rewrote and revised Millie.

Besides there's that voice -- a sound so large that you can't believe it comes from this small, leggy creature. In "Thoroughly Modern Millie," her show-stopper is an 11 o'clock number called "Gimme Gimme," a song written specifically for her.

"My favorite moment is at the end of the first act, singing 'Jimmy' while the turntable set is moving, but my favorite song is 'Gimme Gimme,'" Foster says. "I get to that every night, and I can't believe I am doing it. It's amazing. It sums up the beautiful message of the story, which is that love prevails. Love is what really matters. Love is the key."

"Sutton is an incredible Broadway belter," Scanlan adds. "She has a big powerful trumpet and an electrifying voice. She can blow it out."

Half-teasingly, Sutton's brother, Hunter, agrees: "Yeah, she's always been pretty loud. She had that voice at 10. I remember when she auditioned for 'Annie.' People were just wowed by her even back then."

Today the roles are slightly reversed. Sutton is the sibling Hunter must look up to: Not only is she taller than her brother, but there is also a full-length image of her -- smiling and wearing a black bob, a long string of pearls, her left leg akimbo as she shimmies in a frilly red dress -- that is emblazoned in lights high on the Marquis in the middle of Times Square.

"It is such a happy marriage between actress and character," Mayer says. "In a sense Millie comes to take the city by storm. She comes into people's lives and changes them. She grows and becomes who she is meant to be. Sutton has done that in her role as well. ... She's the heart and soul of the production."