Gimme Gimme

There are certain songs one should never sing when going to an audition. "On My Own" or "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables, "Don't Rain On My Parade" from Funny Girl, and anything from High School Musical. "Gimme Gimme" from Thoroughly Modern Millie is another song that should NEVER be sung at auditions. Why?

Because not only is it overdone, but Sutton Foster has this claimed this song as her own with her unmatchable belting starlet power.

Sutton Foster starred as the title character in Thoroughly Modern Millie, which opened on Broadway on April 18th, 2002, and closed on June 20th, 2004, for a total of 903 performances. Millie is a small town girl who comes to New York in the 1920's to marry someone wealthy and work as a woman of the time. That is, by being handy with a typewriter. In "Gimme Gimme" Millie decides that what she really wants is actually not money, but love, especially from a boy named Jimmy. We see that in the opening line to the song, "A simple choice, nothing more. This or that, either or. Marry well, social whirl, business man, clever girl. Or pin my future on the boy I love."

Two things you'll notice right off the bat about Sutton Foster is that she enunciates every word very well and has a strong vibrato. Her diction may be off-putting to some, but for a Broadway performer, it's very important to be understood. Someone put a lot of work into writing those lyrics, you know, and they damn well better hear them! Foster has a very suitable voice for Broadway, not only because of her diction and vibrato, but also because of her artistic instinct and understand of the songs she sings and unparalleled belting power.

Foster works so well with dynamics. She takes a nice pause between "business man" and "clever girl" as well as changes up the dynamics to really show the contrast. All she wanted before was to be a "clever girl" and marry a "business man." Now she's not so sure. If you listen closely, you can hear a slight hitch in Foster's breath at :30 when she says "nothing more." It almost sounds as if she's laughing.  At :52, Foster sings "what" but she uses so much breath, it sounds more like "hut." I love how she looks around during her "gimme gimme's" as if someone might be staring at her thinking, "What? This girl actually wants to fall in love! That's crazy talk!" Her "I crave it" at 1:56 is so fantastic. Not only can you hear her longing in her voice, but you can see it in her face and body language. At 2:04, Foster says "thick." That's right, says, not sings. And it works well, especially consider she follows it later with a vibrato-filled "thin", then an accented "rich," and finally an elongated vowel on "poor." It's a great phrase. Another great phrase follows suite: "Gimme years, and I'll want more time!" Foster adds an "h" to "and" so it becomes "h-and" and does almost the same thing on "time." However, on "time" she adds the "h" during the word, so the vowel is stretched out and sounds like "ti-h-ime" as she sings without vibrato; a contrast to her earlier words.

And with "Gimme gimme, that thing called love" a diva arrives.

One moment, Foster is basking in her daydreams of love, her eyes closed and her head thrown back, and the next her head is turned sharply, her eyes staring with a determined gaze as she begins to belt. Her "love" at 2:26 comes out of nowhere. You can tell that it's greatly supported, due to the vibrato, and achieved through Foster using her diaphragm in a way that would make any singing teacher proud. For those of you who don't know, the diaphragm is a handy little muscle that lays right around your stomach/rib cage area, and is used to push air and sound within a singer. Try saying "Ha! Ha! Ha!" and you'll feel it working.

Because of her strong vibrato, Foster accents "fly" and "sing" by having those words be sung with a straight tone, i.e. vibrato-less. It works well, especially since "dove" and "sparrow" are sung with vibrato. Foster also uses her breath a lot to display emotion. You can hear it during "Gimme Cupid's famous arrow" as a little hitch or break in her voice. It's a sound very common in any singer, Broadway or not.

Before we get to Foster's big moment, let's take a minute to appreciate her vowels and the way she opens her mouth. All of her vowels are pronounced excellently, and why? Because she shapes her mouth excellently. It may look weird to some that she has her mouth open so wide, but that's the way it has to be for her to sing so well. Foster doesn't sing "o's" that sound like "uh-s." When she sings "nobody" at 2:42, you can clearly hear the "o." You'll never hear "nubudy" or "nahbady" out of Sutton Foster.

Now back to your regularly scheduled big belting bridge.

This is where Foster let's it rip. Every word from "I don't care" on at 2:39  has so much power behind it. Foster could have easily let the low note on "body" at 2:43 fade away, but instead she supports it with breath and pushes the sound towards the mask area of her face (around the forehead, nose, and eyes, where one would wear a mask) so that we hear a full sound. At 2:47, Foster backs away a bit on her "somebody," almost tricking you in a way to think, "Nah, this girl can't belt." Oh ho ho, just you wait and see. It's hard to tell if Foster takes a breath between "to love" and "me." But it doesn't matter. Foster belts it out on "me" and lets it carry over into a gruff-starting, dark-toned "I need it" before jumping back up, and I mean literally lettering her voice jump back up, with "gimme" at 3:01.

I love the note swoops on "I want it" at 3:05. I also love how Foster accents every word on "my bags are packed" at 3:11, and the way she sustains "line" at 3:15 by pulling it further back in her mouth. And then Foster just has some cute little voice quirks. She adds a gravely, rough tone to her voice at the start of the word "Aphrodite," and then goes into some weird accent for "don't forget me." I have no idea what it is, but I love it. She accentuates the "u" sound on "Juliet," giving it a unique tone. Again, we see Foster's great use of her diaphragm and her unique accenting of words by singing them straight-toned at 3:21 with "Fly, dove. Sing, sparrow." "Fly" and "sing" aren't easy notes to hit, and Foster in fact sings two notes on "fly," swooping into the second note. Her head shake as she says "Gimme fat boy's famous arrow" is so adorable, and that line never fails to make me laugh, especially since she's singing it with such power and determination, it's almost threatening. Be careful with this one, Cupid.

Foster finishes it up by throwing her voice all over the place, hitting "gimme" with a sharp sound at 3:27, then a low, husky sound for "that" at 3:28, before going out with a bang for a 10 second sustained belting extravaganza note on "love."

It's a show-stopping number, that's for sure, but remember ladies: don't sing it at auditions.