Sutton Foster, Christopher Sieber and Heidi Blickenstaff Set for Green Heart Reading

Sutton Foster, Christopher Sieber, Heidi Blickenstaff, Nancy Opel and Daniel Marcus will star in a reading of the 1997 musical The Green Heart presented by the York Theatre Company on December 2. Carl Andress will direct with a revised script from original book writer Charles Busch. The show features a score from the late composer Rusty Magee.

"As a good deed to Rusty's memory, I decided to put the music down on CD as he originally wanted it in the show and not as it was ultimately done," Magee's widow Alison Fraser told Broadway.com. "There were a lot of cuts that were made towards the end of the preview period that he violently disagreed with," she says of the show's original off-Broadway mounting at the Variety Arts Theatre, where it opened on April 10, 1997, and played 30 performances. "It had been such a sad experience for so many of us because the Manhattan Theatre Club production was just not what we wanted it to be. I think [the show] was before its time, and maybe now is the time!" Fraser currently stars alongside Busch in off-Broadway's The Divine Sister, which is also directed by Andress.

Foster, who will headline a Broadway revival of Anything Goes in 2011, is a Tony winner for Thoroughly Modern Millie. She also received nominations for Little Women, Shrek and The Drowsy Chaperone. Sieber is a Tony nominee for Shrek and Spamalot. Blickenstaff's Broadway credits include [title of show], The Little Mermaid and The Full Monty. Opel has appeared in Fiddler on the Roof, Urinetown and Sunday in the Park With George. Marcus' stage credits include Pal Joey and The Woman in White.

Based on a short story by Jack Ritchie, The Green Heart follows an egotistical millionaire who, along with the help of his girlfriend, concocts a scheme to marry a wealthy heiress once he has spent his entire inheritance. The original production was directed by Kenneth Elliott and starred David Andrew MacDonald, Karen Trott and Fraser.