Ravinia 2025 Issue 3

SUTTON FOSTER Two-time Tony Award-winning actor, sing- er, and dancer Sutton Foster has most recently starred on Broadway as Princess Winnifred in the acclaimed New York City Center Encores! adaptation of Once Upon a Mattress , Mrs. Lovett in the Tony-winning revival of Sweeney Todd , and Marian Paroo in the 2022 revival of The Music Man , which earned Foster her sev- enth Tony nomination as Best Leading Actress in a Musical as well as a Drama League Distin- guished Performance Award. Since winning her first Tony creating the title role of Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2002, on Broadway Foster has originated Princess Fiona in Shrek the Musical and Inga in Young Frankenstein , and she has headlined productions of The Drowsy Chaper- one (as Janet Van de Graaf), Violet (in the title role), and Anything Goes (winning a Tony in 2011 as Reno Sweeney). Foster reprised the lat- ter role at London’s Barbican Theatre in 2021, earning an Olivier Award nomination, and in 2019 starred as The Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods at the Hollywood Bowl. Her Broadway credits also include Les Misérables , The Scarlet Pimpernel , Annie , and Grease . Since making her Off-Broadway debut as Prudence in Trust alongside Zach Braff, Bobby Cannavale, and Ari Graynor, Foster has starred Off-Broadway in the title role of Sweet Charity and as Quee- nie in The Wild Party . On screen, Foster starred in the TV Land original series Younger and has been a frequent collaborator with Amy Sher- man-Palladino, first starring as Michelle Simms in Bunheads , then guest-starring in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel . She has also appeared on A Million Little Things , Instinct , HBO’s Flight of the Conchords , Royal Pains , Law & Order: SVU , Elementary , and Psych . In concert, Foster has recorded and toured several solo shows—including at Café Carlyle, Carnegie Hall, Feinstein’s, and Lincoln Center—and her solo albums include Wish and Take Mt to the World . Foster published her first book—the memoir Hooked: How Crafting Saved My Life —in 2021, and she hold an honorary doc- torate from Ball State University, where she also teaches. Sutton Foster is making her Ravinia and Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuts. KELLI O’HARA Kelli O’Hara has earned eight Tony and three Grammy nominations as one of music theater’s foremost leading ladies of the past 20 years. In addition to more than a dozen Broadway roles, she has performed with the Metropolitan Op- era as Valencienne in Lehár’s The Merry Widow (2014/15), Despina in Mozart’s Così fan tutte (2018), and Laura Brown in Kevin Puts’s The Hours (2022 premiere and 2024). O’Hara won the Tony for Best Leading Actress in a Musical in 2015 for her portrayal of Anna in The King and I , and she most recently starred in the pre- miere of Days of Wine and Roses , reuniting with the music and lyrics of Adam Guettel, whose The Light in the Piazza was the vehicle of O’Ha- ra’s first Tony nomination in 2005. In that latest role, O’Hara won the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Lead Performer in a Broadway Musical in addition to receiving Tony and Drama League nomina- tions. Her Broadway credits also include Kiss Me Kate , The Bridges of Madison County , Nice Work if You Can Get It , South Pacific , The Paja- ma Game , Sweet Smell of Success , Follies , Dracu- la , and Jekyll & Hyde . O’Hara earned an Emmy nomination with the web series The Accidental Wolf and a Screen Actors Guild nomination with The Gilded Age , returning for Season 3 this year. Her film and television credits also include 13 Reasons Why , Showtime’s Masters of Sex , Blue Bloods , All My Children , All the Bright Places , Pe- ter Pan Live!, Sex &The City 2 , Martin Scorsese’s The Key to Reserva , The Good Fight , N3mbers , and Car Talk . O’Hara is a frequent performer on PBS live telecasts and the Kennedy Center Honors ceremonies, and she is often featured in concert with the New York Philharmonic and the New York Pops. In addition to appearing on Grammy-nominated cast albums of Nice Work if You Can Get It , The King and I , and The Hours , O’Hara has recorded a pair of solo albums, Al- ways and Wonder in the World . Kelli O’Hara is making her first return to Ravinia since her 2009 debut at the festival on an evening of the Rodgers songbook. MARIN ALSOP Following six performances at Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra between 2002 and 2006, Marin Alsop has been an an- nual guest at the festival since 2018 and Chief Conductor since 2021, leading three weeks of concerts with the CSO each summer. She began her professional education at Yale University at 16 and within six years earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in violin at The Juilliard School. In 1989, Alsop became the first woman to re- ceive Tanglewood’s Koussevitzky Conducting Prize. Today the director of graduate conduct- ing at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, she is the only conductor to have earned a MacArthur Fellowship. She founded the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship in 2002 to nurture the careers of female conductors, providing mentorship and a network of now 36 women active in the field. A documentary about Alsop’s life, The Conductor , premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and won the Focus on the Arts Award at the Naples International Film Festival. In addition to her role at Ravin- ia, Alsop is Principal Guest Conductor of the Philharmonia (London) and Philadelphia Or- chestras, Chief Conductor of the Polish National and Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestras, and Music Director of the National Orchestral In- stitute + Festival at the University of Maryland. In 2021 she became Music Director Laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, concluding a 14-year tenure that included the founding of the OrchKids youth music initiative, and she is Conductor of Honor of the São Paulo Sym- phony Orchestra following her seven years as its principal conductor and music director. Deeply committed to newmusic, she was music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music for 25 years, during which she led 174 premieres. In addition to regular engagements with the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, Alsop has long-standing relationships with the Lon- don Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras and frequently guests with the Gewandhaus, Concertgebouw, and La Scala Orchestras. Her extensive award-winning discography includes Brahms, Dvořák, and Prokofiev cycles on Naxos and further recordings on Decca, Harmonia Mundi, and Sony Classical. RAVINIA.ORG  • RAVINIAMAGAZINE 69 PATRICKGIPSON/RAVINIA(ALSOP)