WE’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER MOAT…
Direct from its sold-old, record-breaking New York City Center Encores! run, Once Upon a Mattress returns to Broadway for the first time since 1996. Two-time Tony® winner Sutton Foster gives what The New York Times calls an “ebullient, joyful, perfectly goofy” performance as Princess Winnifred the Woebegone alongside royalty of stage and screen, Michael Urie.
Newly adapted by Amy Sherman-Palladino (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), this New York Times Critic’s Pick introduces the unapologetically eccentric Winnifred to a repressed kingdom, where she charms, delights, and dances her way to the top… of a stack of mattresses.
Book your tickets now to this uproarious production – “it will restore your fealty to the throne!” (Observer).
Yes, hilarious—but for the stretches where Foster isn’t on stage, you sure do miss her. The other actors serve up some appealing light comedy and subplots to keep the motor puttering, but in act two this all amounts to one flimsy diversion after another. Once Upon a Mattress is mostly alright, then at moments—thanks to Foster and the others—very funny, but never stunning. After this Broadway run it heads to Los Angeles. Its producers should be very grateful to Sutton Foster.
“Once Upon A Mattress” opened tonight for its third turn on Broadway, with Sutton Foster’s performance as Princess Winnifred the Woebegone the same goofy and intense workout that proved a draw earlier this year in a two-week run of the 1959 musical comedy as part of the Encores! concert series at New York City Center. The production, which has replaced four of the eight principal cast members, is otherwise largely unchanged now that it has transferred to the Hudson Theater. It is still tuneful, fun, well-sung. But it plays differently for me now. On Broadway, it feels like high school.
1959 | Broadway |
Broadway Transfer Broadway |
1959 | Off-Broadway |
Original Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
1960 | West End |
London Production West End |
1996 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
2004 | Regional (US) |
42nd Street Moon Concert Regional (US) |
2015 | Off-Broadway |
Transport Group Off-Broadway Revival Off-Broadway |
2024 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
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