Sutton Foster

Sutton Lenore Foster, born March 18, 1975, in Statesboro, Georgia, and raised in Troy, Michigan, is an American actress, singer, and dancer whose career has centered on the Broadway stage. She has received seven Tony Award nominations for Best Actress in a Musical, winning the award twice: in 2002 for Thoroughly Modern Millie and in 2011 for Anything Goes. Her additional honors include a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical, also for Anything Goes in 2011, and an Outer Critics Circle Award for each of those two productions.

Foster's path to Broadway began in her teens. At 15, she competed on the reality program Star Search and auditioned for The Mickey Mouse Club. Before completing high school — she later earned her diploma through correspondence courses — she joined the national tour of The Will Rogers Follies, directed by Tommy Tune. She subsequently enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University for one year before leaving to pursue a full-time theatrical career.

Her early Broadway work included a 1996 transfer from the national tour of Grease, in which she played Sandy Dumbrowski, followed by an ensemble role in The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1997. She then returned to Annie as the Star to Be. In 1998, she appeared in What the World Needs Now at the Old Globe Theatre and subsequently toured with Les Misérables as Éponine Thénardier, a role she later understudied on Broadway in 2000.

Foster's breakthrough came through a series of unexpected circumstances during the pre-Broadway development of Thoroughly Modern Millie. After original leading lady Kristin Chenoweth departed the production and her replacement, Erin Dilly, also left, Foster assumed the role of Millie Dillmount with only nine days remaining before the first preview. The show had its pre-Broadway run at La Jolla Playhouse before opening at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway in 2002. Her performance earned her the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical, and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical. During the run of Thoroughly Modern Millie, she also appeared in concert versions of Chess and Funny Girl, leaving the production in 2004.

Following that success, Foster co-starred as Jo March opposite Maureen McGovern in Little Women in May 2005, earning her second Tony nomination. She returned to the Marquis Theatre in May 2006 for The Drowsy Chaperone, playing Janet van de Graaff, a Broadway starlet who abandons her career to marry, a performance that brought her a third Tony nomination. The production had previously run at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles from November to December 2005. After departing that show in 2007, she co-starred in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein as Inga, appearing first at the Paramount Theatre and then on Broadway from October 2007 through July 2008.

Foster next took on the role of Princess Fiona in Shrek the Musical, which opened on Broadway on December 14, 2008, and ran through January 3, 2010. The performance earned her a fourth Tony nomination and a second Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical. Her debut solo album, Wish, was released by Ghostlight Records in February 2009, featuring material spanning jazz, pop, cabaret, and Broadway styles. In 2010, she starred as Nurse Fay Apple in the New York City Center Encores! production of Anyone Can Whistle and made her Off-Broadway debut in Paul Weitz's comedy Trust at Second Stage Theatre, alongside Zach Braff, Bobby Cannavale, and Ari Graynor.

Her 2011 Tony win for Anything Goes, in which she played Reno Sweeney, marked her second time receiving the award. She later reprised that role in a 2021 London production, earning a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical. Her Broadway credits also include Violet, The Music Man, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Once Upon a Mattress, with her stage work spanning from 1987 through 2024.

Beyond the stage, Foster played the lead in the ABC Family comedy-drama Bunheads from 2012 to 2013 and starred in the TV Land comedy-drama Younger from 2015 to 2021. She received honorary doctorates from Ball State University in May 2012 and from Boston Conservatory at Berklee in May 2019; the latter institution also established a merit scholarship in her name, awarded to one student every four years. Her older brother, Hunter Foster, is also an actor.