David Foster has played to packed arenas, produced the world’s biggest pop stars, and even married a Broadway star — but when the legendary hitmaker found himself preparing to walk into Chicago’s CIBC Theatre for the opening night of “Boop! The Musical” back in 2023, the music legend still felt a little out of place.
“I was a Broadway virgin before I started working on that show,” the 16-time Grammy-award winning producer/songwriter says during a Zoom interview from his Los Angeles home. “The fact of the matter was, nobody else at the time was asking me to do a musical — until they came along and asked me.”
Indeed, despite a career that’s touched nearly every corner of the music industry, Broadway had remained uncharted territory for Foster — until the team behind “Boop! The Musical” came calling.
“As I dug in deeper, the comparison that started to help me with the music was Dolly Parton,” reflects Foster, who composed the score for the Tony-nominated production. “I’ve known Dolly for decades, and everything that comes out of her mouth is a lesson. Betty (Boop) is the same way. So, I sort of patterned her after Dolly — whether that helped or not, I don’t know, but it gave me a great visual.”
The passionate theatergoers of the Windy City then gave Foster and his team an early boost, offering enthusiastic feedback during the musical’s limited run in Chicago before the show made its Broadway debut in April 2025.
“Chicago is a place where our director, Jerry Mitchell, has had a lot of success — with ‘Kinky Boots’ and other shows like that,” explains Foster. “It’s also close to New York, where most of the creative team is based — except for me. So, it just felt like a good fit. And of course, it was. Chicago’s a great theater town on top of everything else I love about it.”
It comes as no surprise that Foster was anxious to return to Chicago as part of his 12-city tour alongside friend and fellow music powerhouse Chris Botti.
“I’m a massive fan of his,” says Foster of the Grammy-winning trumpeter and jazz aficionado, whose latest album “Vol. 1” was produced by Foster. “I’m in awe of what he does, and the fact that he wants to work with me blows my mind. He’s so elevated musically — that’s why he’s not stuck in some little shithole playing to four people, like so many brilliant jazz musicians who can’t get past jazz. Chris makes all kinds of music work. He looks for excellence in every genre — and that’s rare for a genius jazz musician.’”
Joining the two music titans in Chicago is Foster’s wife of nearly six years — and a superstar in her own right — Katharine McPhee, who will lend her luscious vocals to some of the iconic songs Foster has helped shape, including “I Have Nothing,” “Over the Rainbow,” and Chaka Khan’s addictive hit “Through the Fire.”
Just don’t expect McPhee to touch any Celine Dion songs.
“I cannot do them,” McPhee says with a smile. “I wish I could — it’s not that I haven’t tried ‘The Power of Love.’ I can sing pretty much everything … except the last note.”
Of course, in this new world of artificial intelligence, that elusive last note could easily be faked. But Foster isn’t interested in deception. Still, when it comes to the broader potential of AI, he’s intrigued.
“AI doesn’t worry me,” Foster says. “Sure, you can do the sound of a whole orchestra at your fingertips, but that’s been for the last 20 years. And still, it’s two dimensional. It’s not three dimensional. You can’t recreate the hundred-year-old wood from a violin. Maybe sometime down the road when I’m long gone, but for now, you just can’t. But if you ask me, AI is a helpful tool for sure.”
“I had to write a speech a couple of weeks ago and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I can’t do this, but thank God there’s ChatGPT,” adds McPhee. “I started using ChatGPT with something that I had already started to write, and it gave me some ideas. But then I went back to my own words out of my own brain, and it was truly a collaborative process. Ultimately what it taught me was that what came out of my brain was more authentic and better. The excitement of creating is what drives me — and truly, it’s what drives us.”