Once Upon a Mattress Star Sutton Foster Loves That Her Fred Is Looking for a Pal Instead of a Prince

In the revival of Once Upon a Mattress—director Lear deBessonet’s Encores! production that transferred to Broadway’s Hudson Theatre—the genuine princess at the center of it all is quirkier than ever. Two-time Tony winner Sutton Foster, who follows in the comedic footsteps of past Winnifreds like Sarah Jessica Parker, Tracey Ullman, and most iconically, Carol Burnett, has been lovingly dubbed “an idiot” by friends who come to see what she’s done with the role. She greets the comments with sincerest gratitude.

“I get to be completely free,” Foster says to Tamsen Fadal on The Broadway Show. Fred, meanwhile, gets to be completely “herself”—a wide-eyed girl from the swamps of Farfelot in search of a buddy to walk through life with, awkward arm in awkward arm. “She's optimistic, she's adventurous, she's curious,” says Foster. “It's not like she's walking into a town going, ‘I'm different.’ She just is.”

The comedic force behind this slightly refocused Fred is Amy Sherman-Palladino, Foster’s “forever friend” and past collaborator on TV shows Bunheads and Gilmore Girls: A Year in Life (Foster can also be heard on the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel soundtrack). Foster tells Fadal, “The way she seamlessly wove a new, little voice throughout it, it was really beautiful." When deBessonet first approached Foster about starring in the Encores! production, the director mentioned the possibility of recruiting a writer to brush up the original 1959 book. “The first person I thought of was Amy,” Foster says, “because she's the funniest lady I know—and in many ways, she's a Fred.” One text message later, Sherman-Palladino was on board.

“This can't just be done over a text,” the actress thought at the time. Apparently, it can.

“Once upon a text …” is how the story begins. Find out what’s happened since in Foster’s full interview with Fadal below.