Sutton Foster Confirmed to Star in Roundabout's Broadway Revival of Anything Goes

Roundabout Theatre Company is confirming previous reports that Tony Award winner Sutton Foster will play Reno Sweeney in a forthcoming Broadway revival of Anything Goes. The production will begin in February 2011 at a Broadway theater to be named later (presumably the American Airlines, Studio 54 or Stephen Sondheim, all of which are owned or programmed by Roundabout). As previously reported, Tony winner Kathleen Marshall, who helmed Roundabout’s successful revival of The Pajama Game, will choreograph and direct. No other casting has been announced.

Featuring a hit-filled score by Cole Porter, Anything Goes premiered on Broadway on November 21, 1934, with Ethel Merman as Reno Sweeney, an evangelist-turned-nightclub singer who entertains passengers during a trans-Atlantic cruise. A 1987 Broadway revival at Lincoln Center Theater, starring Patti LuPone and featuring a revised book by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman, ran for more than two years and won a Tony for Best Revival.

Roundabout artistic director Todd Haimes said in a statement that Anything Goes will not get a scaled-down production in the vein of this season’s Broadway revivals of A Little Night Music and La Cage aux Folles: “I don’t think you can do Anything Goes properly without embracing its size.”

Foster most recently played Nurse Fay Apple in the Encores! presentation of Anyone Can Whistle and is currently in the second week of an acclaimed cabaret appearance at Cafe Carlyle. A Best Actress Tony winner for Thoroughly Modern Millie, she received Tony nominations for Shrek the Musical, The Drowsy Chaperone and Little Women. Her other Broadway credits include Young Frankenstein, Les Miserables, Annie, Scarlet Pimpernel and Grease. Foster’s debut album, Wish, was released in 2009 on Sh-K-Boom Records.

The creative team for Anything Goes will include Rob Fisher (music supervisor), Derek McLane (sets), Martin Pakledinaz (costumes) and Peter Kaczorowski (lights).