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Hear From the Stars of Broadway’s Once Upon a Mattress on a ‘Happily Happy’ Opening Night
Once Upon a Mattress, the ubiquitous, Princess and the Pea-inspired musical comedy that launched Carol Burnett to stardom in 1959, is back on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre. Two-time Tony winner Sutton Foster stars as the unconventional Princess Fred (short for Winnifred the Woebegone of Farfelot) opposite Michael Urie as her timid Prince Dauntless. They lead a crowd-pleasing production that made the leap from New York City Center Encores! to Broadway, directed by Lear DeBessonet and newly adapted by Emmy winner Amy Sherman-Palladino.
“You gotta lean into the fact that it’s a fairytale,” Sherman-Palladino told The Broadway Show on opening night. “Everybody wants some sort of ‘happily ever after.’ It was really about bringing out Fred’s dream of what would make her happy.”
“It’s just pure silliness for two-and-a-half hours,” said Foster, who’s enjoying the musical romp with her cast of seasoned stage veterans including Brooks Ashmanskas, Daniel Breaker, Will Chase, Nikki Renée Daniels, David Patrick Kelly and Ana Gasteyer, to name a few. “We’ve been around for a long time and [we’re] all coming together and not taking anything for granted and just trying to appreciate it and make each other laugh along the way.”
Urie added some kudos for his leading lady. “Sutton in this role is so perfect. And it’s so new,” he said. “What she’s doing is not like what Carol did. It’s not like what Sarah Jessica Parker did. But it honors all of the Freds of the past—including all the Freds out there.”
Watch the full video below.