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By Jay Harvey
Bringing her time-tested solo show to central Indiana for the first time doesn’t mean Sutton Foster is entering unfamiliar territory. This is not a case of a Broadway diva trailing glitter from the Great White Way into the drab hinterlands before quickly beating a path back to the East Coast.
You could ask the Ball State University community about that. The 38-year-old Broadway star has taught theater and dance students in Muncie for several years, culminating in her being awarded an honorary doctorate from the university in May 2012.
“I hope it will be a lifelong relationship,” said Foster in a phone interview last month just before she began a three-week engagement at New York’s Café Carlyle leading up to “An Evening With Sutton Foster” at the Palladium on Oct. 5.
“I’m teaching a Skype course now with their seniors; we’re in the second week of online interaction. And the week after my Palladium show I’m going up there.”
Presented by Actors Theatre of Indiana, Foster will be accompanied by Michael Rafter, her musical director, at the piano for her Palladium performance. The solo show is a work in progress, shaped with a view toward coming up with her third solo CD. Rafter and Foster also collaborated on the first two: Wish (2009) and Sutton Foster: Live at the Carlyle (2011).
“It’s been really fun,” she said. “A lot of it is about discovery and new songs. At the Palladium I think we’ll be doing some songs for the very first time that we just started working on.”
Born in Georgia, Foster was enrolled in a dance class at age four as a way to channel some of her excess energy, as she recalled in the commencement address she gave to the class of 2012 at Ball State.
She sort of happened into theater at age 10, landing the title role in a community theater production of “Annie.” That’s when the show-biz bug bit hard, and her theater emphasis throughout her school days bore fruit soon afterward.
The break came when she was tapped for the title role in “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” a stage version of the Julie Andrews film, which became a much-laureled Broadway hit in 2002.
As acclaimed as she’s been for her acting-singing-dancing skills, Sutton harbors a desire to do more dramatic roles, though she can’t divulge what’s in the works. This interest stems from her respect for acting. It’s the one part of their career preparation, she tells music-theater students, that should be the strongest.
“That was my problem at first: I had a lot of energy and a lot of volume and a lot of chutzpah,” she told me. “I could sing loud and impressively, but singing is a bunch of noise and dance is a bunch of movement. Ultimately you have to be a great actor; without anything behind the sound, it’s meaningless.”
The acting focus is partly why Foster regrets the cancellation of “Bunheads,” the ABC Family series that ran from June 2012 until February with her in a leading role. Critically well-received, its end felt premature to just about everyone involved, she said.
“It came down to an interesting thing for me: learning about the TV world,” Foster said. “The show and the network weren’t quite the right mix; it was different from the other shows they were producing.”
When it’s time to move on, Foster has learned, you seek out new opportunities with a willing spirit. The two most important bits of advice she had to share at Ball State seem to have helped her thrive: “Cultivate personal relationships” and “don’t be a jerk.”
‘An Evening With Sutton Foster’
Sutton Foster, an award-winning Broadway actor-singer-dancer with Michael Rafter on piano.
When: 8 p.m. Oct. 5.
Where: The Palladium, Center for the Performing Arts, 1 Center Green, Carmel.
Tickets: $35 (students), $45-$85
More information: 843-3800
