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    Sutton Foster and Michael Urie Reunite in the Zany ‘Once Upon a Mattress’

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    The hit Encores! production has transferred to Broadway, with a cast fiercely dedicated to entertaining its audience.Princess Winnifred and Prince Dauntless are goofy and playful characters. In most musicals, they would provide comic relief from the main story line. But in “Once Upon a Mattress,” it’s the funny people who rule, both literally and figuratively.All the more so since Winnifred and Dauntless are played by Sutton Foster and Michael Urie in symbiotic performances that are highly controlled and precise while maintaining the appearance of off-the-cuff abandon.And with the rest of the cast mostly following suit, it is refreshing to see actors so actively dedicating themselves to entertaining their audience. This kind of unabashed reveling in the joys of strutting your stuff appears to be in demand, too, judging by the recent success of “Oh, Mary!” and “Cats: The Jellicle Ball.”The family-friendly “Once Upon a Mattress,” which premiered in 1959, is a good fit for the Encores! series — which stages shows that are rarely revived and presented this one in January. Now the production has transferred, with some changes in the supporting cast, to the Hudson Theater on Broadway.Like many Encores! entries, Mary Rodgers and Marshall Barer’s variation on the Hans Christian Andersen tale “The Princess and the Pea” would probably struggle to crack anybody but a tween’s Top 10 list of the best musicals ever.Also like many of those entries, “Once Upon a Mattress” turns out to be surprisingly sturdy in the right hands. Rodgers’s music is zingy and Barer’s lyrics often deploy sneakily enjoyable wordplay (“I lack a lass; alas! Alack!”). Just as important, the book by Barer, Jay Thompson and Dean Fuller is engineered to let gifted comic actors run loose — it is no coincidence that Carol Burnett originated the role of Winnifred.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sutton Foster to Star in ‘Once Upon a Mattress’ on Broadway

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      The revival, which had an earlier run at New York City Center, is scheduled to open in August and close in November, followed by a run in Los Angeles.Sutton Foster, a classic Broadway triple threat beloved for her comedic skills and her big belt, will star this summer and fall in a Broadway revival of “Once Upon a Mattress.”The production had a brief and exuberantly received run earlier this year as part of the Encores! program at New York City Center, where the critic Elisabeth Vincentelli, writing for The New York Times, said Foster “makes a banquet of the material” and added that “Foster’s glee in taking possession of the stage creates an all-encompassing manic energy that both the audience and her scene partners feed off.”The musical, first staged in 1959, is loosely based on “The Princess and the Pea” fairy tale; Foster plays Princess Winnifred, a graceless minor royal who is a possible bride for a local prince. The role is a fun one for comedically gifted actresses — it was first played on Broadway by Carol Burnett, and then, in a 1996 revival, by Sarah Jessica Parker.The show features music by Mary Rodgers and lyrics by Marshall Barer. The original book was by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller and Barer; the current revival is a new adaptation by Amy Sherman-Palladino (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”).The revival is being directed by Lear deBessonet, who is the artistic director of the Encores! program. It is to begin previews July 31 and to open Aug. 12 at the Hudson Theater. The run is scheduled to end Nov. 30, and then to transfer to Los Angeles, where Foster will star in a four-week run, beginning Dec. 10, at Center Theater Group’s Ahmanson Theater.Foster, a two-time Tony Award winner, for “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and a revival of “Anything Goes,” just wrapped up a three-month run in a revival of “Sweeney Todd” that she began five days after ending her two-week City Center run in “Mattress.”The “Mattress” revival is being produced by Seaview (Greg Nobile and Jana Shea) and Creative Partners Productions (C. Graham Berwind III and Eleni Gianulis-Vermeer). More

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      How Sutton Foster Juggled ‘Sweeney Todd’ and ‘Once Upon a Mattress’

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      There’s busy, and then there’s bonkers.Sutton Foster, one of musical theater’s most celebrated performers, had already committed to starring in a City Center production of “Once Upon a Mattress,” on top of developing concert shows for Carnegie Hall and Café Carlyle, when she was approached last fall about stepping into the lead female role in the Broadway revival of “Sweeney Todd.”She hesitated.“Sweeney” wanted new stars in January, the same month as the “Mattress” production. She would have to simultaneously master two scores and two stagings while building the bespoke concert shows and learning to speak with a Cockney accent. And even if, as it turned out, “Sweeney” was willing to wait until her “Mattress” run ended, she’d still have to do double duty — rehearsing “Sweeney” during the day while performing “Mattress” at night.She said yes.On Feb. 9, she took her first bows as Mrs. Lovett, the shamelessly resourceful pie shop owner in “Sweeney Todd,” alongside Aaron Tveit, also in his first night, as the bloodthirsty barber (the show’s title character). It was just five days after she took her final bows as Princess Winnifred the Woebegone, a coarse but determined marriage candidate in “Once Upon a Mattress,” and the applause was thunderous.Foster with Aaron Tveit, who is also new to “Sweeney Todd,” during rehearsals in early February at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater.OK McCausland for The New York TimesSo how did she do it?Plenty of people hold down two jobs at once. There are repertory companies in which actors perform in a rotating selection of shows. There are Broadway stars who spend offstage hours filming television shows. And 40 years ago, Cynthia Nixon, while still a teenager, spent three months performing in two Broadway plays at the same time (dashing from one theater to another and back again).But still, learning the starring roles in two vocally and physically demanding musicals at virtually the same time is a feat. And, inevitably, Foster faced hurdles. Among them: Halfway through “Mattress” rehearsals, she came down with Covid (for a third time).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Once Upon a Mattress’ Review: Sutton Foster as a Perfectly Goofy Princess

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      The Encores! series returns with a concert staging of the 1959 musical, which also stars the very funny Harriet Harris and Michael Urie.Some casting choices are blindingly obvious. That does not make them lazy; it makes them right.Such is the case with Sutton Foster as the eccentric Princess Winnifred in the Encores! revival of “Once Upon a Mattress,” which opened Wednesday at City Center. The central role in this broadly goofy musical was exuberantly, indelibly originated by Carol Burnett in 1959.While Foster has displayed range over the course of her musical-theater career — she’s stepping into Mrs. Lovett’s kitchen in “Sweeney Todd” on Feb. 9, five days after completing this show’s two-week run — many of Foster’s best roles, like Janet Van De Graaff in “The Drowsy Chaperone” and Reno Sweeney in “Anything Goes,” are imprinted with an ebullient, joyful relish in the very act of performance. And Winnifred, described by another character as “a strangely energetic swamp girl,” is an ideal outlet for that sensibility.“Once Upon a Mattress” is nobody’s idea of a great musical, but it is many people’s idea of a fun one. Based on the fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea,” this vaudevillian lark — which The New York Times described, possibly not in a good way, as “a child’s introduction to Broadway” in a review of a 1964 CBS telecast — is celebrated for helping to kick-start Burnett’s career and for being the composer Mary Rodgers’s sole Broadway hit.That last clearly represents a loss: Rodgers, paired with the lyricist Marshall Barer, demonstrates startling ease with musical-theater idioms and the late-1950s vernacular. (Winnifred’s “The Swamps of Home” works as both an earnest ballad and a sly spoof of the goopy nostalgic yearnings of some numbers by Richard Rodgers, Mary’s father, and Oscar Hammerstein II.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Broadway’s ‘Music Man’ Revival Will End Run on Jan. 1

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      The show’s producers have decided not to recast after stars Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster finish runs of slightly more than a year in the show.An enormously popular Broadway revival of “The Music Man” will end its run on Jan. 1, reflecting a decision by the producers not to recast after the departure of the show’s stars, Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster.The production began performances Dec. 20, so Jackman and Foster will have been in the show for a little more than a year once it closes. And both of them have been working on the project for several years, because it was, like many other shows, delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.“We managed to get Hugh and Sutton until the first of January, which is a remarkable commitment, and I felt really strongly that they have created such a unique event between them, trying to think of somebody who could follow on that became impossible,” Kate Horton, one of the lead producers, said in an interview. “This was its own particular magic.”At the time of its closing, the revival will have played 358 regular and 46 preview performances, according to the production. Like many other shows, it lost some performances to coronavirus cancellations, including during an ordinarily lucrative stretch over the holidays last December when both Jackman and Foster tested positive for the virus.Horton said that the production has not yet recouped its $24 million capitalization costs, but that it will do so before closing. “The stops and starts were costly in lots of ways, including financially,” she said. When performances had to stop last December, it “was a big body blow to the show, and I had a moment of not knowing if we were going to be able to really keep it going — we were all over the place in terms of what Covid was throwing at us, and it’s probably one of the most challenging moments I’ve had in my career,” she added. “The fact that we continued and are going to recoup might not seem like a miracle, but it feels like it for me.”Horton is co-producing the show with the billionaires Barry Diller and David Geffen. The three took over when the initial lead producer, Scott Rudin, stepped away from his role amid accusations of bullying behavior.Despite tepid reviews from many critics, and despite winning zero Tony Awards, the show has consistently sold out, with a high average ticket price. The revival has been the top-grossing show on Broadway throughout its run; for a long time, it was grossing over $3 million a week, which is huge for Broadway, although recently its grosses have softened slightly to a still enviable level of $2.7 million to $2.9 million a week.As of Sept. 4, the revival had grossed a total of $106 million and had been seen by 400,435 people.“The Music Man,” a classic of golden age musical theater, was written by Meredith Willson and first played on Broadway in 1957; this revival is directed by Jerry Zaks and choreographed by Warren Carlyle. More

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      ‘Cabaret,’ Starring Eddie Redmayne, Leads Olivier Award Nominees

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      A revival of the 1966 musical, with Jessie Buckley as Sally Bowles, is up for 11 awards at Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys.LONDON — A revival of “Cabaret” that has been a topic of conversation here for its sky-high ticket prices as much as its stellar cast dominated the nominations for this year’s Olivier Awards — Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys — that were announced on Tuesday.The musical secured 11 nominations including a nod for best musical revival, as well as for best actor and actress in a musical for its stars Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley.Its prominence was perhaps unsurprising given the acclaim “Cabaret” has received since opening last December in a production that transforms the West End’s Playhouse Theater into a seedy nightclub straight out of 1920s Berlin.Audiences enter the show through the theater’s backstage corridors, and can even have a preshow meal once inside, partly explaining why tickets cost up to 325 British pounds (or about $420).Matt Wolf, reviewing the show for The New York Times, called it “nerve-shredding” for its portrayal of a world on the verge of Nazism. Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph called it “2021’s kill-for-a-ticket theatrical triumph,” suggesting readers “dig like your life depended on it into your pockets” to pay for a ticket.Even with such praise, “Cabaret” faces stiff competition in the musical categories, especially from a revival of Kathleen Marshall’s 2011 Broadway production of “Anything Goes” at the Barbican, which secured nine nominations including for best musical revival and a best actress nomination for Sutton Foster as Reno Sweeney. Foster won a Tony in 2011 for the same role.Sutton Foster has been nominated for an Olivier for her role in “Anything Goes.”Peter Nicholls/ReutersIn the nonmusical categories, the nominations are led by “Life of Pi,” Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s best-selling novel telling the story of a boy stuck on a lifeboat with a tiger. That play, at Wyndham’s Theater, has secured nine nods, including a best supporting actor nomination for the seven puppeteers who bring the tiger to life.“Life of Pi” was also nominated for best new play, where it is up against “2:22: A Ghost Story,” a haunted-house thriller that was at the Noël Coward Theater, “Cruise,” a tale set in London’s Soho in the ’80s (that was at the Duchess Theater), and “Best of Enemies,” James Graham’s play about the rancorous 1968 TV debates between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal that was at the Young Vic.One of the most highly contested categories is likely to be best actress in a play, where Cush Jumbo is nominated for her performance as Hamlet at the Young Vic Jumbo is up against Emma Corrin, nominated for her role in “ANNA X” at the Harold Pinter Theater, the singer Lily Allen for “2:22: A Ghost Story” and Sheila Atim for a revival of “Constellations,” at the Vaudeville Theater.The winners will be announced in a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Apr. 10. More

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      On the Scene: ‘Music Man,’ a Big Broadway Bet 🎺

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      On the Scene: ‘Music Man,’ a Big Broadway Bet 🎺Matt Stevens🎭 Reporting from BroadwayThe Omicron variant has made this a tough winter for the theater. “The Music Man,” a big-budget, star-studded musical, opened Thursday hoping to provide Broadway with something of a booster shot in the arm. 
      Here’s what the night looked like → More

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      Review: Even With Hugh Jackman, ‘The Music Man’ Goes Flat

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      Sutton Foster also stars in this neat, perky, overly cautious Broadway revival of a musical that needs to be more of a con.There comes a moment in the latest Broadway production of Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man” when high spirits, terrific dancing and big stars align in an extended marvel of showbiz salesmanship.Unfortunately, that moment is the curtain call.Until then, the musical, which opened on Thursday night at the Winter Garden Theater, only intermittently offers the joys we expect from a classic revival starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster — especially one so obviously patterned on the success of another classic revival, “Hello, Dolly!,” a few seasons back.The frenzy of love unleashed in that show by Bette Midler, supported by substantially the same creative team — including the director Jerry Zaks, the choreographer Warren Carlyle and the set and costume designer Santo Loquasto — has gone missing here, despite all the deluxe trimmings and 42 people onstage. Instead we get an extremely neat, generally perky, overly cautious take on a musical that, being about the con game of love and music, needs more danger in the telling.That’s something I’d have thought Jackman would deliver. His previous New York outings, especially in musicals like “The Boy From Oz” in 2003 and a “Back on Broadway” concert in 2011, were unbuttoned affairs, sometimes literally, threatening at any moment to spill over the lip of the stage. As such, Harold Hill, the traveling salesman who dupes Iowans into buying instruments for an imaginary band, would seem to be a perfect fit for him — or at any rate an impossible fit for anyone else.But Jackman mostly suppresses his sharky charisma here; this is not a star turn like Dolly Levi or, for that matter, Peter Allen in “The Boy From Oz.” Instead, he seems to see Hill as a character role: a cool manipulator and traveling horndog who in being unprincipled must also be unlovable.The result is a smart but strangely inward performance. By turning away from the audience, he not only undersells big numbers like “Ya Got Trouble” — in which Hill spellbinds the citizens of River City into believing that the recent arrival of a pool table will cause juvenile delinquency and that a boys’ band is the solution — but also undersells us.Sutton Foster with Kayla Teruel, seated, and Jackman in the show, which is directed by Jerry Zaks.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAs the town librarian who sees through him immediately, Foster does not have that problem; her take on Marian is witty and front-facing throughout. She fully commits to the seriousness but also to the size of the comedy, letting it arise from the big internal conflicts of a woman with standards too high for her own happiness. You believe it when her mother (Marie Mullen, lovely) complains in semi-spoken song that “not a man alive could hope to measure up to that blend a’ Paul Bunyan, Saint Pat and Noah Webster you’ve concocted for yourself outa your Irish imagination, your Iowa stubbornness and your liberry fulla’ books.”But the casting of Foster introduces a problem even she cannot solve. With its outpouring of musical styles and counterpoint numbers, Willson’s score is brilliantly designed to push different worldviews into proximity and sometimes into harmony. Soaring above the more pedestrian sounds of the townspeople with their lowdown dances, thickly harmonized barbershop quartets and crisp civic anthems, Marian’s soprano literalizes the idealism at the heart of her character and conflict. Her lilting “Goodnight, My Someone” and Hill’s raucous “Seventy-Six Trombones” could not be more oppositional — until it turns out they are in fact the same melody, in different octaves and at different tempos.Jackman with Benjamin Pajak as Marian’s brother, Winthrop, and Marie Mullen as her mother, Mrs. Paroo.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThough Foster can sing the required notes, she is really a belter, with a mezzo quality to her voice regardless of the pitch. In her high-flung songs she works too hard to force the bloom when what’s needed is ease and exuberance. “My White Knight,” an aria that is usually a rangy highlight of the role, is performed here in a lower key and as fast as possible; it comes off less as a stratospheric dream than a street-level race, making Marian sound, and thus feel, pretty much like everyone else.Unfortunately, that flatness is endemic to the production. The central element of Loquasto’s set is a full-width barn wall whose doors occasionally slide open to reveal vignettes played out against drops painted in the style of Grant Wood (another Iowan). But even when the barn disappears completely, the staging feels two-dimensional — and so old-fashioned (except for the astonishingly good dancers performing Carlyle’s athletic choreography) that it might have come straight from 1957, when “The Music Man” premiered on Broadway. Or even 1912, when it’s set.I suppose you could argue that an old-fashioned show deserves an old-fashioned staging like the kind that worked for “Dolly” — and it’s certainly true that “The Music Man,” as written, includes some antique elements that give us pause today. This production rightly omits, for instance, the “Wa Tan We” girls of the “local wigwam of Heeawatha” and their “Indian war dance.” Even though such ludicrous appropriations are authentic to the setting, a musical comedy need not be a documentary.But omit too much and what’s left lacks texture. Running shorter than its advertised length, this revival cuts a lot, eliminating even minor details that might cause offense. The boy who is secretly dating the mayor’s daughter is no longer the son of “one a’them day laborers south a’town,” presumably because the suggestion of class prejudice is too hot for a comedy to handle in 2022.Same with the show’s treatment of men’s casual harassment of women. You can’t really remove it from the main story; Hill’s modus operandi involves seducing piano teachers and leaving them flat. (At one point he refers to Marian as his “commission.”) In light of that, it seems foolish merely to change a lyric here or there; in the dopey dance tune “Shipoopi,” the couplet “the girl who’s hard to get … but you can win her yet” has become suddenly enlightened as “the boy who’s seen the light … to treat a woman right.”What world are we in?Jefferson Mays, center, as the River City mayor, with, from left: Eddie Korbich, Daniel Torres, Nicholas Ward and Phillip Boykin.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“The Music Man” can work today. I’ve seen it be thrilling as recently as 2018, in a Stratford Festival production that didn’t shy away from the chance it offers to explore class differences and, with a Black Harold Hill, even racial ones. In this production, too — a colorblind one — some performers manage the trick of making their characters, as Willson requested, valentines to small town folk, not caricatures. Jefferson Mays as the blustery mayor and Jayne Houdyshell as his imperious wife get all the humor out of their roles without diluting the way their ideal of civic culture is just another kind of con.As, no doubt, is ours; one of the points Willson makes in “Rock Island,” the spoken-word number that opens the show, is that old products remain sellable even when old packages become “obsolete.” It’s just that if you’re a traveling salesman, you “gotta know the territory.”No doubt that’s as true for musicals as it was for Uneeda Biscuits. If we’re going to keep selling classic shows, we have to find meaningful new ways to package them. Even for the best salesmen among us, and Jackman is surely that, the territory is changing fast.The Music ManAt the Winter Garden Theater, Manhattan; musicmanonbroadway.com. Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes. More

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      How Hugh Jackman, Sutton Foster and ‘The Music Man’ Withstood Covid

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      Nearly 60 cast and crew members have tested positive since rehearsals began. Now, following a 10-day shutdown during previews, opening night is near.As soon as Hugh Jackman learned that the leading lady of “The Music Man,” Sutton Foster — whom he spent a substantial portion of every night breathing on, sweating on and locking lips with onstage — had tested positive for the coronavirus, he knew it was just a matter of time.“I’m pretty sure on every C.D.C. guideline, making out with someone with Covid is not recommended,” Jackman, 53, said in a phone conversation in late January. He is starring opposite Foster as the scam artist Harold Hill in the high-profile revival of Meredith Willson’s 1957 musical, which is scheduled to open Feb. 10 at the Winter Garden Theater.And, sure enough, five days later, came the positive proof on his at-home Covid test. Already down about a third of the show’s 46-person cast, and with both leads out, the producers canceled the next 11 performances. (The cast and crew were still paid during the shutdown, Kate Horton, one of the musical’s producers, said.)Though performances resumed a little over a week later, it was just the latest setback for a starry, star-crossed revival of the feel-good comedy, which won the Tony Award for best new musical in 1958. Originally scheduled to begin previews in September 2020, the show had already pushed back its opening night twice and weathered the departure of its lead producer, Scott Rudin, amid renewed scrutiny of his bullying behavior.The production, which is capitalized for up to $24 million, reunites much of the creative team behind the Tony-winning 2017 revival of “Hello, Dolly!,” including the director, Jerry Zaks. Its cast includes six Tony winners: Jackman; Foster, who plays the librarian Marian Paroo; Shuler Hensley; Jefferson Mays; Jayne Houdyshell; and Marie Mullen.In phone interviews last month, six members of the show’s cast and creative team outlined the measures they took to keep the show going amid a coronavirus outbreak; the vital role of actors known as swings, who have no regular role in a show and cover up to a dozen ensemble parts; and how they kept their spirits up amid a challenging preview period. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.When the “Music Man” revival was announced in March 2019, it looked as if it would be the marquee event of the fall 2020 Broadway season. Amid the industrywide shutdown, opening night was pushed to May 2021, and then again to Feb. 10, 2022. Finally, this past October, the show started rehearsals.The show’s director, Jerry Zaks, left, and its choreographer, Warren Carlyle, overseeing rehearsals.Landon Nordeman for The New York TimesJERRY ZAKS (director) We felt we had gotten past Covid, and we were just happy to be there. We dived in and went nonstop.HUGH JACKMAN (Professor Harold Hill) It was so great to be back in the room.KATHY VOYTKO (swing/Marian understudy) It was a thrill to test negative every day.On Dec. 20, amid the Omicron surge, “The Music Man” had its first preview. Four covers — an actor who goes on for another actor who calls out of a show — were onstage.KATE HORTON (producer) I would look at the situation we were facing each day, and I would have conversations with stage management and the creative team and we would decide what to do.SUTTON FOSTER (Marian Paroo) At one point, there were 14 people out of the show. We had swings covering seven roles and trying to hold up that show. And they did. It was remarkable. One of our swings, Emily Hoder, is 10 years old, and she was covering three tracks.ZAKS I couldn’t do the critical work of addressing the material, making changes in the lighting, fixing the sound, because we had so may people out. There was a moment when we asked ourselves if we’d have to push opening night.Then it happened: On Thursday, Dec. 23, the morning of the fourth preview, Foster tested positive.FOSTER We’ve been vigilant, but I have a 4 ½-year-old daughter who goes to preschool. On December 20, the night of our first preview, she hadn’t been feeling good, and my husband took her to the doctor and she tested positive. But every day I was testing negative, negative, negative. Then on Thursday morning, I did a rapid test at home, and it immediately was just this rude red line. And I was like, “OK, here we go.”But the show still went on that night, thanks to Voytko, a swing and an understudy for Marian, who mainlined the role in eight hours.VOYTKO I had an 11 o’clock costume fitting, and, just before noon, our costume designer, Santo [Loquasto], said “Kathy, call Thomas [Recktenwald],” who’s our production stage manager. And I sort of had that sinking feeling. And sure enough, he said, “You’re on.” I voice-texted my husband because my hands were shaking so much that I couldn’t possibly have used my phone. Then I put my phone on silent, and I grabbed my emergency cheat sheet I had made.“I want people to understand that these are unprecedented times in theater,” said Jackman, who plays the scam artist Harold Hill opposite Foster’s Marian Paroo.Landon Nordeman for The New York TimesJACKMAN She had her first rehearsal as Marian at 1; we had until 5. We got through every scene once. I think maybe she got to redo something twice.WARREN CARLYLE (choreographer) There are three really tricky sequences that could take an actress down: the finale; “Shipoopi” at the top of Act II because there’s a lot of dance for her there; and the library sequence, which is very prop heavy. There are something like 75 library books and a million different things that have to go in a million different places.VOYTKO A big goal post was getting through “My White Knight” because the lyrics have a patter section, which is a bit of a tongue twister. And I only had two shots at the dance for “Shipoopi” with Hugh and the tap finale before we had to do them in front of an audience.And she did. She got a standing ovation, and Jackman delivered a curtain speech praising understudies and swings that went viral.JACKMAN I want people to understand that these are unprecedented times in theater. I was so moved by what Kathy had gone through. I’ve never seen anything like that.After other breakthrough cases, the production canceled its Saturday evening and Sunday matinee performances on Dec. 25 and 26. On Tuesday, Dec. 28, Jackman tested positive.JACKMAN I was already feeling a bit funky when I was doing the show the night before, even though I was testing negative at the time, so it wasn’t a surprise. I was pretty nauseated, with a scratchy throat and a runny nose. My wife was amazing — we’d been sleeping in the same bed together, obviously, so I think she expected to get it too, which she did. But I’m vaccinated and boosted, so I was fine after a few days.The show eventually canceled its next 11 performances, through Wednesday, Jan. 5.HORTON Every time somebody is out when you’re so early in the life of the show, you need to do a technical rehearsal with the stand-in. But when you get to a certain number of people being out, there isn’t enough time to do that and make sure everyone onstage is safe. We got to a point where there were over 10 people off, so it was a very straightforward decision, actually.But the production never considered postponing its opening or following in the footsteps of “Mrs. Doubtfire,” whose producer, Kevin McCollum, decided in January to pause performances for nine weeks, with plans to resume in March (“To Kill a Mockingbird,” like “The Music Man” co-produced by Barry Diller, announced a hiatus later that month).And there was music: The show is scheduled to open on Feb. 10 at the Winter Garden Theater.Landon Nordeman for The New York TimesHORTON We knew mathematically we would get through it. Once a certain number of people are out and you know they’re coming back, it was just a revolving-door situation, like who was going to be back when. And the demand for the show is so huge that we knew we had audiences waiting for us.Previews resumed on Thursday, Jan. 6. Finally, the full company was onstage together for the first time, with no covers or swings.ZAKS It wasn’t until the end of January that I was able to make the changes and cuts that I wanted to make.FOSTER We had an extraordinarily long preview process — over six weeks. In shows I’ve done in the past, the preview period has been about four weeks. So even though we lost 10 days, we’re still in good shape.HORTON Things have stabilized hugely. Advance sales have been fantastic. We’ve gone a couple of weeks now with no positive tests.VOYTKO I did three shows in a row with Hugh — smooching, panting under dance numbers in each other’s faces — but I never tested positive! We were joking that an epidemiologist should do some sort of study.Now, with opening night in less than a week, the cast, crew and creative team are ready to celebrate.JACKMAN It’s amazing to be on a stage with a cast that’s near 50 people and a 25-piece orchestra. It’s a story about faith, belief and community that’s so timely. It’s one of those perfect musicals.VOYTKO Nothing will ever be as stressful as going on in a fourth preview as Marian. My greatest hope is that everyone is healthy on opening night, and I can cheer them on from the audience! More