“She put together a one-man show for me, as a director, and then she got sidetracked by the Newfoundland hit,” said Foster. He originally took the concept to Des McAnuff, the former Stratford Festival artistic director and Broadway director (Jersey Boys, Big River), who referred him to choreographer Kelly Devine (Come From Away). “All going well, by the fall of 2018, we should be up and running,” said Foster.Īnother labour of love is his development of an autobiographical one-man-show ostensibly inspired by Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays. One of Foster’s favourite numbers, Wake Up, has already been reworked, renamed Lean In and moved from Betty Boop’s opening to its midpoint. (The happy ending for Herman, incidentally, was that his beloved tune was reinstated for the Broadway revival with Bette Midler.) He’s acutely aware there are no guarantees it will reach Broadway, which he says just makes the journey that much more thrilling.Īs Hello Dolly! composer Jerry Herman discovered when Penny in My Pocket, his cherished solo number for Horace Vandergelder, was cut prior to Hello Dolly’s original opening in 1964 because of time constraints, Foster realizes he, too, will face changes and omissions. “I think I’m at the point where we can do a 29-hour read, lock things down and workshop it by the end of the year.” “Betty Boop is being fast-tracked now,” said Foster, 67, who was in Victoria to attend a 75th birthday party on June 30 at Strathcona Hotel’s Distrikt nightclub for his first wife, singer-songwriter B.J. Elmo’s Fire, The Secret of My Success and The Bodyguard, the Victoria-born tunesmith has developed a passion for the stage.Ĭhilling out in a suite at Bayview One after being honoured at a Canadian College of Performing Arts fundraiser last Saturday night, Foster said his current list of projects includes development of Betty Boop, a musical based on Max Fleischer’s Depression-era cartoon sex symbol.įoster has composed 35 songs for the New York-bound musical he’s collaborating on with Bill Haber, the Broadway producer whose credits include War Horse and Spamalot. Forty years after David Foster began writing music for movies, a list that would include St.
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