So the cast has been announced and some promo shots have been released. Who's psyched for the Encores! production of Anyone Can Whistle starring Donna Murphy, Sutton Foster and Raúl Esparza?

All three are favorites of mine, but I don't think they are right for this show. Although, it's a bit of a comfort that with the exception of Foster, all the leads have experience doing Sondheim shows, which of course always helps a great deal.

I much preferred the last concert cast of Madeline Kahn,Bernadette Peters and Scott Bakula.

but i can see it being an adequate cast.

I think it's remarkable that they got Sutton Foster to do this. I can't recall her ever doing a revival or a concert of a show that she didn't originate.

And I am sooo psyched for Raul Esparza in this, no matter how strange the casting might be. He's my god.

EDIT- By the way, Salome, I was never aware of the concert with Bernadette Peters. Do you know of a link on youtube I could go to?

Svetlana in Chess.

Donna Murphy is a better bet than Madeline Kahn, who was awfully lackluster as Cora. Had there been a revival in the 1970s, Kahn would have been ideal as Nurse Apple, but she doesn't quite hit the mark with Cora, certainly not vocally at any rate.

But Sutton Foster is going have a helluva time trying to live up to Bernadette Peters in the role. In fact, I wonder if she'll even top what we know of Lee Remick in the role: Foster may have a better voice, but I don't think she's as good as actress.

Say what you want about the previous casts, but there's no doubt that this is the right cast for NOW.

Personally, I'm not as enamored of Sutton Foster as many others seem to be. She has a great voice, her dancing is fantastic, she has excellent stamina and works hard enough to carry a lightweight show, but I don't know what I think of her as an actress yet. However, that might change if she pursued a few decent roles instead of performing in drek like Young Frankenstein and Shrek, absolute fluff like Thoroughly Modern Millie and The Drowsy Chaperone (which at least has more to recommend it than most of the other Broadway shows in which she's appeared) and well-intended shows that think they are better than they are like Little Women. Nurse Fay Apple is a more complex acting role than any of those - even Jo as its written in that really unsatisfying adaptation of the classic Louisa May Alcott novel - as well as Eponine and Sandy.

Anyway, Here are some production photos from the show.

Madelen Kahn may not have been Angela Lansbury..but I quite enjoyed her take on Mayor Hoover-Hooper. if anything bernadette peters seemed to have been sufffering a severe cold when she played Nurse Apple.

no Doubt Donna Murphy will be wonderful though. She is the current successor to Angela and bernadette as Sondheim's current leading lady.

The only problem with that is that her "take" seems to begin and end with Kahn playing herself.


There's a big difference between struggling with illness, as Peters was, and not being right for a part vocally at all, as Kahn was. Peters still gets packs an incredible emotional range into her role and delivers a knockout performance, managing to do what Lee Remick never could: getting the balance between the monologue prior to "There Won't Be Trumpets" and the song itself to work so that the reaction to the first doesn't compromise the efficacy of the second.

Well i found Kahn extremely enjoyable, her timing her delivery..everything. she was , with carol Burnett and Lucille Ball one of only 3 female comics to have been considered a genius of the profession. (some mya also argue for Lili Tomlin).

A comic genius, yes; a great Cora, no. Enjoyable for some, perhaps, because of who she was and because of her technical prowess, but her interpretation of the role was too pat, which is perhaps ironic given how facile the character is meant to be.