Sutton Foster is a two-time Tony Award winning actor, singer and dancer. She is also an instructor at Ball State University.
Fresh off her starring role alongside Hugh Jackman in the revival of The Music Man, Sutton returned to Ball State this Spring to prepare for an upcoming concert series and to teach and mentor our students, as she has been doing since 2010.
In this episode, Sutton shares more about her Midwestern upbringing, how she got her first big break on Broadway, and how her love of crafting has helped her manage the pressures of life as an entertainer.
She also reveals how close she came to studying at Ball State herself, and why she is now so passionately committed to helping the next generation of performers from our University find their voice—as well as their own fulfilling careers.
If you enjoy this episode, please leave a review to support the show.
Sutton Foster is a two-time Tony Award winning actor, singer and dancer. She is also an instructor at Ball State University.
Fresh off her starring role alongside Hugh Jackman in the revival of The Music Man, Sutton returned to Ball State this Spring to prepare for an upcoming concert series and to teach and mentor our students, as she has been doing since 2010.
In this episode, Sutton shares more about her Midwestern upbringing, how she got her first big break on Broadway, and how her love of crafting has helped her manage the pressures of life as an entertainer.
She also reveals how close she came to studying at Ball State herself, and why she is now so passionately committed to helping the next generation of performers from our University find their voice—as well as their own fulfilling careers.
If you enjoy this episode, please leave a review to support the show.
[GEOFF MEARNS]:
Today, it's my privilege to welcome a very special guest to the studio for the latest episode of our Call to Beneficence. With me today is Sutton Foster. Sutton is a two-time Tony Award winning actor, singer and dancer who just completed her latest show on Broadway. She starred in the hit revival of The Music Man alongside her costar Hugh Jackman.
While she's taking a break from the stage, Sutton is back again this spring at Ball State. Since 2010, Sutton has been an instructor in our university's nationally recognized Department of Theater and Dance, where she has mentored many of our talented students in their pursuit of a fulfilling career in the arts. And I'm grateful to Sutton for her ongoing involvement with our students.
And today I'm excited to learn more about the many roles of her career from Broadway actress and concert performer to author and devoted mother. Welcome, Sutton, and thank you for joining me in the studio today.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Well, we're delighted and honored to have you with me. So, I want to begin by mentioning that as we're recording this episode, it's we are celebrating One Ball State Day. It's our fifth annual 24-hour fundraising event, our day of giving. And so, Sutton, I understand you're doing something special today to help us raise money for our theater department.
Why don't you tell the folks who are listening, tell us a little bit about it.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Yes. Today I am hosting a dance cardio class at Emens Auditorium. Very exciting. Very excited. I am actually … it’s something that I do in New York. I'm a—I'm a trainer with a wonderful company called The Limit that started during the pandemic. And it's a dance-based workout. So I wanted to be able to share it with the students, because when I started working out there, someone told me, if you ever want to get into Broadway shape, you need to work out at The Limit. And I was like, okay, I want to be in Broadway shape. And so I wanted to be able to introduce it to some of the students so that they could have this as a resource. And the cool thing about it is that we do it in person in New York, but we also do it over Zoom, too. So you can literally take the class anywhere.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Well, that's wonderful. I will not be joining you.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Oh, come on.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
I will be doing my specialty, which is I'm sharing pizza with the students.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Well, if you could just be outside the class waiting for me with pizza, that would be really helpful.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
We'll save you a slice.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Thank you.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So in just a minute, we're going to talk a little bit more about your relationship with Ball State University. But first, I want to learn a bit about how you discovered your voice and your talent when you were a child. Where did you grow up and when were you kind of bitten by the musical theater bug?
[SUTTON FOSTER]
By the bug [laughs]. I grew up in Georgia, in small towns in Georgia. My father worked for General Motors, Chevrolet, and my parents are originally from North Carolina. And so I lived in Georgia until I was about 13. My mom was a big fan of the movies and entertainment. She grew up in a one light town in North Carolina, and her father, she wanted to be a model. And her father was like, absolutely not. And so which is … so she decided to get married and she had kids, but she put me in dance lessons when I was four years old. I also had like, I always think I had a lot of enthusiasm and energy and volume. And so I think she was trying to sort of hone all of that energy.
So I started taking dance lessons, and that was what sort of led me to theater, community theater, really. And my brother, I have an older brother who's about five years older. His—he was doing a lot more sports and things, basketball and football and all of those sort of activities. But our church was doing a production of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, and they needed boys. And so they asked my brother if he would play Linus. And so that is my first memory of seeing theater was at our little church in Athens, Georgia, where my brother was on stage. I was probably, you know, six or seven years old, watching my brother and being like, what is this? Like, what is this thing?
And so when we moved—we moved around a lot, my dad was transferred a lot when I was a kid—and when we lived in Augusta, Georgia, a local community theater was doing a production of Annie and they needed dancers. And so they came to our dance studio and they were looking for dancers to play orphans. And there was like a little flier on the board. And my mom saw it and she's like, You should audition. I was like, I don't know. And I showed up at the audition with, like, this is the ‘80s, you know? So I've got jelly shoes and jean shorts on and like, a frayed Myrtle beach t-shirt or something. And I ended up—I sang at the piano, but I had never really sung in public before, but I had a natural singing voice. And my mom said the room got really quiet and I was just oblivious. And then they ended up casting me to play Annie. At the August Players Community Theater in Augusta, Georgia. And then that was it was all over from that.
I was just oddly very confident and, you know, I wasn't fearful. I wasn't afraid to just sing in front of people or do all these things, I don't know why. It’s just who I was. And we just, my brother and I both kept doing community theater. That was really how we started. And it was all local theater. My brother ended up going into musical theater at the University of Michigan. When I was 13, we moved to Detroit, Michigan. We lived outside of Detroit, and I did a lot of … I went to a public school, Troy High, that had a wonderful theater program helmed by Mr. Rick Bodick.
And we did all the theater there and local theater. And so it was just sort of what I did for fun. The idea of doing it professionally never really … I didn't really know that that was an option, that you could get paid to do it. It was just something, something fun that I I loved to do. So it was sort of a slow burn.
And we didn't know anything about theater. No one in our family was in the industry or had any clue. We would go to our local—so this is all pre, you know, pre-Internet, pre YouTube, all of those thing, now you can look up anything—but we would go to our local library and we would check out cast recordings because my mom was like, we need to educate ourselves of like what shows, Broadway shows and music.
And as I was auditioning for things, we had my mom like, help me find music. But I remember like, listening to cast albums and trying to teach myself, like, what is this thing called Broadway.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Right? So you moved to Detroit when you were about junior high or high school
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Yeah, 13, seventh grade.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And then it wasn't long after you relocated to the Midwest that your career really took off. I think you were just 17 years old when you became a chorus girl with the national tour of the Will Rogers Follies. Describe how that happened and what that experience was like for you.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
I was, uh, it was between my junior and senior year of high school and I really my only outlet to Broadway were cast recordings, the Tony Awards, PBS Great Performances. And so, I was watching the Tony Awards that year. This was between, I guess, ‘91 or ‘92 or somewhere in there. And it was it was the year I saw a number from the Will Rogers Follies. It was the show that actually won Best Musical that year. And it was a line of chorus girls. And they were all tall and they were all dancers. They all could sing, they all had big teeth. And I remember turning to my mom and going, I could do that.
And about, maybe a month later, in our local paper in the Detroit Free Press, there was an article saying they were looking for dancers for the national tour of the Will Rogers Follies. They were going to hold auditions at the Fisher Theater in downtown Detroit, and they were looking for dancers ages 18 to I don't know … and they had to be above, you know, taller than 5’7 and experience with tap and dancing or all of these things. And my mom's like, You should go. But I was 17 years old and I was like, Mom, I'm not old enough. And she said, Well, you'll just tell them you'll be 18 on your next birthday, which would be a year from then, because I had just turned 17.
So I went. I went to the audition, I went down, my parents were sitting in the back of the auditorium, and I ended up getting… I had to dance and had to sing. And again, I was just so green and naive and sort of unafraid, which is sort of astounding to me. I'm like, I don't I'm not quite sure what that was, but I just was like, do da do, I'm going to do this thing.
And I got down to the last two girls and the choreographer, the associate choreographer, a man named Jeff Calhoun, turned to me and he goes, How old are you? And I said, I'll be 18 on my next birthday. And he's like, I'm going to see you in New York. And I was like, okay. And they flew me to New York for a callback.
And the very first time I stepped into a Broadway theater was to audition for the Will Rogers Follies. It was at the Palace Theater in New York, and I auditioned on the set because that's where the show was playing. An audition on the set, and it was like a two day audition. And at the end it was Tommy Tune and Cy Coleman. Tommy Tune was the director/choreographer, Cy Coleman was the composer and they were in the audience. And I'm just standing there and I'm with all these grown-ups, women. I mean, I was such a kid and I got cast in the show. I was one of 18 girls who were going to go on the road. And the first thing I thought of was I got to tell my mom, you know, like, I hope this is okay. Do they know that I'm just a child? But I spent my senior year of high school traveling all around the country doing the show. And one of the very first things I had to do is I had to go ask my principal for permission. And amazingly, the entire school was so supportive. The principal and my drama teacher and my speech and debate teacher, which were my two—Mrs. Clark and Mr. Bodick— they helped me graduate because I still had …. I had some outstanding credits.
I had mostly electives left to graduate. And I had to do one over summer school and then the rest were electives. So I ended up finishing high school through correspondence because again, this is before internet or email or anything. So I was it's like we did get things done, you know, that's it's amazing.
I was like, How did we do this? But I would read plays and write reports and then for speech and debate, I would go to local high schools and talk about my experience with, um, which is amazing because it's sort of what I'm doing at Ball State, you know? But I would go, and I would talk about my experience, about what I what I was doing, what I was learning. And so that's how I ended up graduating high school.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So it was obviously a great experience, but there probably were some challenges as a young woman. And so I'm going to get a little bit ahead of myself. But in 2021, you published your memoir called Hooked, and I'm going to ask you a little bit more about that in just a minute. But in that memoir, you also described your time with The Follies, and you wrote how you began crafting to escape some of the challenges that existed between you as a young performer and, as you said, some of the more experienced women. And you refer to this as kind of “new girl” hazing. What did you what did you mean by that? And how has your love of crafting actually shaped your life?
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Oh, well, yeah, I would say there were many challenges during that tour. The reality of it was I was too young. I probably should have been there with a parent. You know, It was almost like … I just did a show with kids in The Music Man. It was filled with kids and there was, but they play kids. And in the Will Rogers Follies, I was a kid, but I was playing a showgirl. So all of a sudden I was thrust into this environment that I was wearing scantily clad work costumes, and I was hanging out with, you know, 18 like grown women. And it was just a very—I was literally a fish out of water. And all of that green naivete, that uh, youthful exuberance that got me the job was also probably exhausting, to be honest, to a lot of these women. It was it was a life changing experience, but when I look back on it, I … I recognize, I see all the sides of it.
It's like, um, it's a very nuanced, you know, nuanced situation. I was ultimately too young. I wish, I wish there had been a little more grace, I guess, given towards me. It's something I think about a lot now, especially when working with young people, because you just realize there's there's a lot of grace needs to happen as people are just learning and figuring things out, learning who they are. Like, I didn't even know who I was. I was just sort of a, a bumbling …
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And many of our students or other students may see the experience from the stage and not realize all of the dynamics that are …
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Yeah .
[GEOFF MEARNS]
when you're off stage, particularly if you were on a tour.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, and it's and also like someone who I mean I've, I've, I'm pretty, I'm very proud of my career and my trajectory, but, but through that there have been tons of challenges and, and things that I've had to navigate personally and professionally and, and it's sort of how we and that's all part of it and, and how we how we navigate it.
What are the tools that we use to sort of handle situations. It's interesting for me, it was finding other hobbies, finding things that brought me and I still do this. We were just talking about gardening. Gardening is like one of my new hobbies, like things that bring me joy and this can translate to anything too. Doesn't matter what you do, if you're a performer or what, or a president. It's like whatever you, whatever job you have. For me, being a performer or like, so much of my self worth or value was based on who I was in that environment. And I didn't have balance. And I think for me, crafts or creating something tangible, whether it's gardening or drawing or cooking or crocheting or whatever it is, it gives me balance in my life and brings me. … at the end of the day I go, Look, I grew a tomato or I made pasta or you know, I crocheted a scarf or whatever it is. So it's something tangible and has given me unbelievable balance in a in a career that can be all sorts of things. You know, it can be the most fulfilling exhilarating thing. It can also break your heart, you know.
And so, I'm so grateful to my—to all of the different things that I love to do. I was just thinking, it's like, Oh, it's April … I’ve got to order. You know, I'm working on my garden. I have a garden at my home in New York, and I'm so excited because I was like, It's time! You know, I can, like, start, start, I it'll be like my obsession for the next three months. So it's really fun to be able to have other things that have nothing to do with what you do or what. Yeah, what you do for a living and …
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah and as you said, we talked as we were walking over about also having your children, your child, participate with you. But I also understand that you have some fun with your crafting and that from time to time you give costars and friends and maybe the occasional talk show host, homemade gifts that you've crafted. What's the most unique gift you've made for someone?
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And I did a little prep, so I have one.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Okay. Well, I am a fan of a toilet paper roll cover, and I feel like I've missed an opportunity. So I just want you to know that there's going to be a toilet paper roll cover in your future, because everyone should have one, really. We should make … we should make toilet paper fun. But probably one of my favorites I made, so I have a book that has all these different patterns, but I've actually made … so I've made an octopus for Hilary Duff. I made a little jack o lantern for Jimmy Fallon. For Hugh Jackman's opening, I made like, a band hat, which I had a custom design. Very exciting. Amy Sherman-Palladino I made a little black top hat. Oh, gosh. It's been … it's like, really fun. It's like my side hustle, right?
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So I think I saw a clip of the jack o’ lantern shaped toilet paper cover that you gave to Jimmy Fallon on the air. Okay … dialing it back a little bit. You studied theater at Carnegie Mellon for a year. What was your college experience like?
[SUTTON FOSTER]
My college experience was really awesome. I really loved Carnegie Mellon. I—the tricky thing was that I had just spent a year working professionally, doing Will Rogers Follies. And then I left the tour because I wanted to be … I wanted to be on a normal trajectory. I’d had this sort of extreme experience of a working environment, not feeling like a kid at all. And I just so I was like, I just want to be, I just want to be with everybody else. And like, my freshman year, I was like, Oh, I'm okay. Like now I can just be a bumbling idiot with everybody else. And so my, my college experience was actually really spectacular. And Carnegie Mellon was, was and is a fantastic institution.
One of the reasons, I mean, I had several reasons why I didn't return, one of which was that I was which is crazily, I was ending up … I was financially paying my own, my own way. And just financially it was just, as we all know, it was not it was an expensive venture. And my mother at the time was actually more supportive of me … She was not as supportive of me going to school, which is, I know, shocking, but she really thought I should go to New York and just work, especially after doing Will Rogers. So I didn't necessarily have the support from home to continue in college. Umm…so and my family was kind of going through a little bit of a rough time at that moment, and I just thought maybe I'll just take some time …
So after my freshman year, I left and I moved home. My parents were living in Memphis, Tennessee at the time and I, I didn't … nd that was like, that was my dark last period. And at 19, I just didn't know what I was going to do. Like, was I going to continue to pursue theater? Was I going to go back to school?
That's actually when I looked at Ball State. So my mom was a big fan of Dave Letterman, and so she—Ball State was always in my … because of Dave Letterman. But when I was thinking about going back to college and I was also thinking like, Oh, what do I want to study? If I don't study musical theater, like what will it be?
And my mom was like, Well, we should go look at Ball State. And I remember we got all the information about Ball State. I think we even took a drive up here. We like looked around campus, and I was like, Well, maybe I could study science. That was like something I liked in school. And so I was, you know, an inch away from applying to Ball State.
And then I ended up going to visit my brother in New York, and I went on some open calls while I was there. And one of those open calls led me to a job. I got a job and in four days I was on another national tour.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah, you were on a national tour of Grease? Yes. Yeah, that show Grease. And what was your role in that show?
[SUTTON FOSTER]
I was cast in the ensemble, but I understudied Sandy, Rizzo, and Marty.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And after Grease, you then accepted more roles in a few Broadway shows, but then you landed the lead role in Thoroughly Modern Millie. And so what did the role of Millie mean to you? And really, how did playing that role changed the course, the trajectory of your career?
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Well, so … up until Millie oh gosh, I mean, I, I was I was always the type of person I think, I mean I still am … again my naivete and just greenness and sort of exuberant, you know, you know, willingness to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, is really what led to Millie. And Millie is all of that. She is like this exuberant, you know, wide eyed girl from Kansas, you know, with the two bags in her hand and comes to New York with big dreams.
And I mean, she has big dreams to marry her boss and be rich. Mine were a little different, but I. … but I related to that sort of wide eyed exuberance and greenness. And I was essentially Millie. That's just who I was at 26 years old when I played her. But it completely changed …. I was originally cast in the ensemble and as the understudy. And when it was out of town through a crazy series of events, I ended up taking over the role. So I will always have that like, understudy takes over lead….
And then I took the show to Broadway and again, my greenness and naivete was just like, okay, you know, I don't think I realized what that meant or the pressures of helming a $11 million musical with that … that didn't really resonate until maybe like last year [laughs], you know, like, I was like, what?
But it completely changed my career. I ended up I won the Tony for Best Actress, which still is … I'm still that 15 year old kid watching the Tony Awards sitting in the beanbag on the floor of my living room in Detroit, Michigan. And so it's a yeah, it completely it put me in a different category and just opened up opportunities for me to be able to play more leading roles and to take more chances.
And yeah, my entire, my entire career changed in a phone call when the director called me and said, We want you to play the role of Millie. But I, I, I never could have anticipated something like that happening. Someone, someone when I talk to the students, it's like .. this industry is a lot of luck, but it's also a lot of preparation. And you have to be ready when the luck strikes. So it's like you ….you you got to you got to just you got to keep working. And so I was ready when the luck hit. So I was like, yep, let’s go.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And you put yourself in that position. I once heard somebody who was very accomplished, who said, you know, if you want to get struck by lightning, you've got to dance in the rain.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Right?
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And so you have to put yourself in those positions. And I'm often asked by students, so, you know, what words of advice do you have? And I say, when someone asks you to do something, just say yes.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Yeah.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. Just say yes, it will … it will work out. It doesn't mean it always will. Yeah, but seize those opportunities.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Seize those opportunities and also trust your gut. Like for me, it's like that … whatever that little thing is. And maybe someone else is going, Are you ..what are you doing? And I'm like, Oh, I don't know. I kind of want to do this. This, you know, it's like there's always like this little voice that is leading you and always listen, try to listen to it, you know? I mean, I'm sure there's a bad voice in there somewhere, too. But the one that’s pulling, if there's something's pulling you towards something, you know, don't ignore it. Listen to it. Yeah.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And I've also found and this is going to lead to my next question is that when you say yes to something, a special, unexpected opportunity, you can meet some special people along the way. And the musical director for that show was Michael Rafter. And thanks to you, Michael is now also on the faculty with our Department of Theater and Dance.
And you two are good friends and regular collaborators. What do you enjoy most about working with Michael?
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Working with Michael Rafter … Michael was the music director on Millie, and we have been working together ever since. We've done … we travel all over the country and the world doing concerts, and we've done three albums together and we're developing a new show right now for the Cafe Carlyle in New York, as well as a bunch of concerts coming up … he is it's so funny … You have different types of relationships that you have in your life. He’s … like a true … I've never worked with anyone else like him.
He's like a true collaborator, like we just sort of speak the same language and we're not afraid to go, Um, no. And musically, he’s like a perfect dance partner, or a tennis partner, you know, always lobbing the ball back. While I’ve been here this week, we've had sessions almost every day developing new material. And we always say, you know, we're playing in the sandbox and, and we have uh, but there's just this level of trust. Not only is he—he’s just a beautiful pianist, but as a singer, when someone is playing for you, it is a dance. And you want to feel … it should feel effortless and fearless, and as if you're leaping into the sky and someone is always there to catch you. And that's Michael Rafter. So it's just … and these students are so lucky to have him because he has an exceptional ear, impeccable taste. And he is … he is … as a teacher, what he has taught me as a singer has been invaluable because he's just sort of he strips away all the unnecessary.
And I think that's what's wonderful for these students is that he's able to kind of get to the core of who…the essence of who these kids are, at least who they are at 20, 21 years old. Because who really are we at 20? You know, we're still figuring it all out. But that's what he's constantly even doing with me. It's like, just constantly sort of stripping away what's unnecessary and just kind of getting to the truth.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. We're fortunate to have you and Michael engage with our students. So in the early 20s, as you said, you won your first Tony and then you originated the roles of Jo in Little Women and the showgirl Janet Van de Graaff in Drowsy Chaperone. And then you were in Young Frankenstein and Shrek. We could probably talk about each one of those shows, but did you have a favorite role or one that you found particularly challenging or particularly fun?
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Oh, gosh. I always say, like, my favorite is the one that I'm doing at the time. And all the roles have been particularly … they've all had their challenges. They've all taught me something to. Probably my most challenging role was probably Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes just because she was so different than who I was.
She was a woman of great bravado and confidence. And it's funny, I talk about like, my fearless confidence, but I'm a bit of a goofball, you know, and naivete. And she's not naive at all. And so there was a … I felt like there was a greater bridge to cross to sort of find her. And essentially, I do believe that every character that you play there is a piece of yourself that is that character.
So you're … you're sort of, there's this opportunity with each character to sort of learn more about who you are as a person and as you're sort of digging within yourself to sort of find different aspects. And so Reno was sort of a fun character to play because she allowed me to sort of play in a part of myself that I, I, was a little I was afraid of.
And uh, but she sort of, you know, each character sort of expands, expands you as a human being. So it's an interesting thing being an actor.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And you mentioned a few minutes ago about you had heard about Ball State even when you were a college age young woman. But what prompted you to become more fully engaged, to help with the New York showcase, to become involved really with working with our students on a regular basis?
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Bill Jenkins, the chair of the department, had, um, it was really him. The students come to New York every year for a showcase where they present their talent to agents and managers and people in New York, to the industry. And, oh gosh, it had to have been back when I was doing Little Women, maybe, he came to New York and reached out to my agent for, to see if I would come speak to the students.
And because I … because of my mom and because of Ball State, I was like, oh, Ball State, you know? And then he offered, you know, $500 or something. And I was like, $500 sounds great, you know, so … [laughs]
[GEOFF MEARNS]
You’re kind.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
So I was like, okay, that sounds whatever .. yeah, I'll go, and I'll talk to your students. And so that was really my first time meeting the students. And I, I was just really taken again, it was like Midwestern sensibility. I'm from the Midwest. Ball State. Bill is so fantastic. The students were so earnest and sweet and they came back the next year, the next year, the next year, the next year. And I spoke to them like four years in a row, to the point where I was now watching, like the first years were now seniors, and I was like, Oh wow, this is really cool. I had always had a pull towards education. I'd always wanted to be … people always asked, If you weren't an actress, what would you be? And I was like, Oh, I'd be a teacher. I always wanted to be my high school drama teacher, but I love also working at university level and so, doing masterclasses and things like that. And so when Shrek closed on Broadway, this was at the beginning of 2010, I said to Bill, Can I come to campus? And he was like, Yeah. So I came to Ball State in February of 2010.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Always great to be in Muncie, Indiana in February. [laughs]
[SUTTON FOSTER]
[Laughs] And I came back! But it was so awesome, and I had the most wonderful week and met all the students and it was just like this magical thing. And so it became a yearly thing. And so I started and I co-directed a production of The Drowsy Chaperone. I had been working a little bit at NYU in New York, where we had developed this cabaret course. And I had done two semesters at NYU with this cabaret course where you choose a composer and you kind of … essentially sort of similar to what Michael Rafter and I do.
It's like throwing all these ideas in a hat. But what it does is it gives the student ownership and to be able to sing and choose the material that speaks to them singularly and personally. And I talked to Bill about developing something like that here at Ball State. And so I'm not quite sure what year the cabaret started, but we started doing a cabaret class here at Ball State and it has been unbelievable …and it’s for the seniors. The seniors get to participate in it every year. And I participate basically over Zoom or YouTube, and then I'll come to campus to work. They do a show in Indianapolis in the fall. And then, in the spring, the show comes to New York and it's performed at Joe's Pub, which is this unbelievable spot in in in New York City, part of the Public Theater in New York City.
And it's a remarkable course because the students really learn how to curate and create music that is special to them … that maybe no other person could sing. And they're able to really share a piece of themselves that isn't playing a character. What I love about it is that it also gives them the control or the permission to be able to continue to create material so that they're not just waiting for a phone, you know, a phone call. They're able to actually go out and create material for themselves.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. And as you know, Jennifer and I are big Ball State cabaret theater groupies.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Yeahhhh.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
We go to Indianapolis and New York and we love it. In May of 2012, after a couple of years after you had been teaching, you also were the commencement speaker here, right on the quad and you received an honorary doctorate degree. It's one thing to read a script … I think I hear from many people that actually delivering a commencement address is particularly challenging because you're asked to try to say something meaningful …
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Yeah.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
about your career, something that might be relevant to their aspirations, something that is meaningful to their lives. Do you recall what you spoke about?
[SUTTON FOSTER]
That was a long time ago.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah …
[SUTTON FOSTER]
I feel like, Let's go to the clip. Let's roll the clip … I don't even remember what I—I think it was something along the lines of probably very similar to what I wrote in Hooked, about having a full life, making your life about balance and finding um, finding a full life that actually doesn't take from your work, it actually makes your work better. Um, I think it was along the lines of that.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah, and we often talk in our mission statement at the university about fulfilling careers and meaningful lives. I believe that's, that's the educational mission. It's not just—it includes a preparation for a career, but it's, it's beyond that. So you've also done television acting, um, you became a costar of a series called Bunheads, and then in 2015, you became the star of the series Younger, which just ended its seventh season in 2021.
Briefly describe the plot of that show and tell us why playing the character of Liza Miller, why that appealed to you? And by the way, you were a perfect cast for that character.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Aww thank you. Younger was about a … about a woman who had put her career on hold to raise her daughter and to have a family. And then as she, her daughter was getting older, she decided to go back into the workforce. She worked in publishing, book publishing. She found that because of her age, she was having a hard time getting hired, even as, in an entry-level job.
So she, at the encouragement of one of her friends, she pretends to be younger, so she creates a fake ID and a resume of a—so she's a 40-year-old woman, and then she goes back and, I want to say auditions, but no, she applies as a 26-year-old and actually ends up getting hired as—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Because she's 26.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Yeah. So, it was a really cool show. It dealt a lot with ageism and women in business. The social politics of that. The cast of characters was eclectic, and we dealt with all sorts of things. But ultimately it was a multi-generational sort of love story among friends and—and also relationships. And how we look at different ages. It was eye opening to me, even. As being a woman in her forties playing a 26-year-old which was, you know, fascinating and eye opening. But no, it was an amazing seven years of my life. And I loved being a part of the show and a really spectacular cast, a crew working in New York City. And I learned so much about what it's like to be on camera. And yeah, it was a completely different—so different than theater, which had been so much so much a big part of my life. But yeah, it was an amazing experience.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And the show, at least the episodes that I've seen in what you've just described, go back to the point you made a moment ago, and particularly the challenge for women. Often it's a binary choice, either to pursue a career or to find meaning with family or friends, and men have a better opportunity of finding that balance.
So it's what we, again, as we try to encourage our students to see if they can do both.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Well, yeah, I mean, it's my challenge right now. I mean, I have a six-year-old daughter and I'm still pursuing my career and making choices and I have opportunities that come in and it's a different type of— I have different … I have different responsibilities now that being, being married, raising a daughter, wanting to show her that a mother can work, fulfill her dreams, you know, and be there for her.
It's like, but it's this constant balance. And yeah, one that I struggle with a lot.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And you wrote about that in your book, about becoming a mother to Emily in 2017. Your mother had only passed away a few years earlier. And so, in the book you talk about how becoming Emily's mother helped you better understand.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
My own mother. Yeah.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And what did you mean by that? And what made you think, um, you know, you talk about being fearless, writing a book, a personal book like that takes some courage, too.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
[Laughs] I know, I know. So I had a very challenging relationship with my mom. Umm .. and my mom … there was undiagnosed mental illness. And so that colored a lot of my relationship with my mother, and my understanding of my mother and also my mother's limitations of what she was even capable of handling. I mean, there's so many different resources now. It's like, it makes me sad to think, you know, there's always that, oh, if only or whatever. But then, in writing the book, it was incredibly cathartic for me as well because so often we focus on the …. what we didn't get or what wasn't there.
But yet my mother, the thing in writing the book, I was able to really, really understand the ways that she was there. And it may not have looked the way that it looked in other people's families or the way maybe I had hoped or dreamed. But I would never be the woman I am without my mother or as fiercely independent or as successful.
And so there are ways that she loved me that might not look as conventional as others, but she really set me up for a, like, a fiercely fearless, independent life. And I'm forever grateful to her. But it is a fascinating thing because she only knew what she knew. I only know what I know. And I'm hoping to broaden that circle.
And as I'm raising a little girl and I have all of these things that I am passing on, and I find myself saying similar things that my mother used to say to me. And then now Emily is saying them to me. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's happening, but it is a fascinating thing to be able to … I'm like looking forward and backwards at the same time and realizing, I mean, my mom was only I mean, she was 21 when she had my brother. She was 27 when she had me. I was 41 when Emily was born or 42 when Emily was born. I was, you know, 15 years older than my mother.
And like, thank goodness, I think about the things of what I know now. And um, but it's uh, parenting is this fascinating thing. And if anything, Emily, my daughter is teaching me more. You know, she's like my greatest teacher right now. And is really causing or allowing me to really look at myself in a new way. She's sort of breaking me open in a new way ummm…. I mean, I'm going … it's like, it’s a beautiful thing.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Right … and you talked about the value of grace. You know, as we're growing up, particularly as teenagers, not sure we extend our parents the grace that they deserve.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
I—yeah….
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And we all hope our children will show a little grace.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
I know…. I have a little six-year-old and everyone's like, wait, ‘til she’s ten. And I'm like, Oh, no, but yeah, I know. It's like, a lot of grace because we're all just trying to do our best, you know? As we're all just trying to figure things out.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. So I have just a couple more questions about your career and then a last question. So you've also, in addition to being on stage, in a television series, you've also released albums. You perform cabarets, you've played concert dates. And as you mentioned earlier, you're working now on a cabaret show for the Cafe at the Carlyle. And then this fall, you're preparing for an upcoming performance in the fall at Carnegie Hall.
And so, what's so gratifying and why I'm so grateful to you—you also, from time to time, includes some of our students in those performances. Yeah.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Yeahhhhh….
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Tell us about why you do that and how that comes off.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Well, I just think it's an amazing opportunity to be able to share these experiences and, and for me, it's almost like, I want to show the students that the bridge from where they are to where I am is ….. it seems so vast, but it's actually really small—or it can be. And um, so recently, I did a gala performance in New York City for the Roundabout, which is an amazing theater company.
They produced Anything Goes and Violet, two shows I did in New York, and every year they have a big gala in New York at the Ziegfeld Ballroom, and I was doing it with Michael Rafter and we wanted … and often in these situations too, it's an opportunity to just, not only give students an opportunity to sing, but to introduce them to a room full of people that are in the industry so it’s like, Oh yeah, let's … let's see if you know … So six of the juniors joined me to sing a song, On My Way, which is this arrangement that is on our album. And it was amazing. At one point, one of the students, we were offstage, and as we were about to enter, she says, Is this real life. And I'm like, Yeah, it is. This is real life. Like, this is happening. Like we're all doing this together. This is so cool. And as we're preparing for the show at Carnegie Hall, we have a sort of a grand idea of, of including alumni and sort of really I want to honor Ball State and my involvement at Ball State. But I, I just realize I've, I've been involved with Ball State for so many years. It would be amazing to be able to include all of those students that I've had the opportunity to work with over the past ten years—or 13 years really, and to be able to include them in in that event. And it's also…. it's Carnegie Hall, like, that's really cool. Even I'm like, I can't believe it. So we just sort of … this idea of being able to, really, it's just bridging that gap. It doesn't have to feel like this intangible thing … it's actually a little bit closer than they think.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And so, in addition to including our students in your performance and in addition to some of our outstanding students, you perform with some folks like Hugh Jackman.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Oh, yeah.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
In The Music Man. So what was that like? I mean, Jennifer and I saw the show, and it was fabulous, but what was it like to rehearse and perform The Music Man in the middle of a pandemic?
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Well, I'll just say it was pretty awesome to just be doing it at all. Because for about 18 months, Broadway didn't exist. And I never in a million years thought what I did for a living would just be gone. And I'll never forget that day, March 12th, 2020, when the Broadway theater shut down. And so, to be able to be a part of a show, one of the first shows that came back, and by then it was post vaccines. We had vaccines, but we were still doing a lot of testing, a lot of masking. I think we opened right when Omicron hit, you know … So we had our fair share of COVID battles, but we persevered. And it was a really sort of remarkable thing to be a part of, and to be able to be a part of revitalizing New York City, revitalizing Broadway.
I uh….yeah. And it oddly brought the company of our show—we banded together in a way that I hadn't experienced, because we were all coming back from … and there was a greater sense of gratitude and appreciation and also this sense of like, you know what, I'm going to enjoy every single day because it could be gone.
And so it was a different type of experience and the audience as well. So it was, like, this meeting of everyone's just so excited to just be there. And we're like, You know what? We're going to savor it for as long as we can. So it was a pretty explosive, magical experience.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah, it was a great show and this has been a wonderful conversation. So here's my last question.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Okay.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So as I mentioned, the mission of Ball State is to empower students to have fulfilling careers and to lead meaningful lives. And the symbol of our mission, the symbol of the values that guide our mission. is the iconic statue of Beneficence. We walked by it just this morning on our way over here to this studio. And as you know, beneficence means the quality of doing good, doing good for other people through service and philanthropy. So what does beneficence … what does that mean to you?
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Oh, first thing I thought of was to be kind. You know, a lot of people ask me, they say you're what's your number one piece of advice and I say Oh to be kind, and so it's kindness. It's giving of yourself. I mean, it's saying, yes, it's taking opportunities and it's also being aware that there is more than just yourself going on … as we are all on our own self quests of our own selves.
But to look around at others, and to give of yourself to others … in kindness.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah …so thank you. Thank you for all that you do for Ball State. You are the embodiment of beneficence. And so we're grateful that you share not just your talent, but really your generous spirit with our students. And you're a wonderful reminder that you can be quite successful in what you do, and yet you can still give to other people.
So thank you very much. Thank you.
[SUTTON FOSTER]
Thank you. It’s been my pleasure.