Chicago's own Jessie Mueller, who won the Tony Award for best actress in a musical last year for playing the title role in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, has been named actress of the year by the Sarah Siddons Society.
Mueller will receive the award—given regularly since 1952, inspired by the fictional Sarah Siddons Award in the film All About Eve—at an April 27 event at Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire. Also appearing will be Tony Award winners and previous Sarah Siddons honorees Heather Headley and Deanna Dunagan, as well as Mueller's entire acting family: her parents, Roger Mueller and Jill Shellabarger, and her siblings Abby, Matthew and Andrew. All four Mueller siblings are expected to perform, as is Headley.
Proceeds from the event benefit the Sarah Siddons Society's scholarship fund for theater students at Columbia College Chicago, DePaul University, Northwestern University and Roosevelt University. Tickets ($95, students $25) are on sale at beautiful.brownpapertickets.com.