Sutton Foster, Hugh Bonneville headlining Christmas with Mormon Tabernacle Choir

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The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, shown during its 2012 Christmas concert, will have Sutton Foster and Hugh Bonneville as its featured artists for its 2017 Christmas concert. (Mormon Newsroom)

The special guest artists for the Christmas with Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert were announced Thursday, Oct. 12, on The Doug Wright Show on KSL Newsradio.

Hugh Bonneville will narrate this year’s Christmas with Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert. (Stuart McClymont)

This year’s performances will feature two-time Tony Award winner Sutton Foster as the solo artist and Hugh Bonneville as the narrator.

While the concert has already seen star-studded guests from Sesame Street favorites to David Archuleta, it is sure to be a hit with Broadway fans this year.

“I’m so thrilled,” Foster told Doug Wright from New York City, where she said she is reading for a new Broadway musical. “I am just so honored and excited and I just can’t wait to sing with the choir and celebrate Christmas in Utah, which is what I’m most excited about. I’m very good friends with several families that live in Salt Lake, so it feels like I’m coming home.”

Foster has many Broadway credits on her resume and received two Tony Awards for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, first in 2002 for her role as Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie, and then in 2011 for her performance as Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes. She has also played title roles in “Bunheads” on ABC Family and “Younger” on TV Land.

Foster was well received by students and faculty when she visited BYU in September 2014, where she performed two solo concerts and taught a master class to Music Dance Theatre students.

Two-time Tony Award winner Sutton Foster, shown talking with students on the BYU campus in 2014, will perform in Christmas with Mormon Tabernacle Choir. (Samantha Williams)

Gayle Lockwood, department chair of BYU’s Music Dance Theatre program, told The Daily Universe she was grateful for Foster’s influence on students during her earlier visit. “She encouraged students to find themselves in the characters that they portray to bring authenticity to their work,” Lockwood said.

Foster has also played two leading TV roles, first in “Bunheads” on ABC Family and most recently in the role of Liza Miller, a 40-year-old single mother who uses her youthful looks to navigate her career. “Younger” finished airing its fourth season on TV Land this summer.

She has also produced a solo CD, “Wish,” and a CD titled “An Evening with Sutton Foster: Life at the Cafe Carlyle.”

Hugh Bonneville is best known to American audiences for his role as Robert, Earl of Grantham in “Downton Abbey,” for which he received a Golden Globe and 2 Emmy nominations. His film credits include “Notting Hill,” “Iris,” “The Monuments Men” and the two “Paddington” movies. He said during the concert announcement he is working on a third “Paddington” movie.

Christmas with Mormon Tabernacle Choir performances will be Dec. 14-16 in the Conference Center on Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

Tickets are required but free. They will be available online only, at lds.org/events, starting at 10 a.m., Oct. 21, with four tickets allowed per patron.

Music and the Spoken Word on Sunday, December 17, will feature music and the guests from the Christmas concert performances but will not require tickets for admission.

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