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Hairspray Live! (NBC) - General Discussion


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I'm thinking that Darren really should've played Link as well. Yeah some of you don't really like him but his charisma would've brought Link to life. But he probably didn't have time with him touring playing Hedwig these days.

As for next live musical....while Damn Yankees would be great for Dove, I'm kinda hoping they do Wicked. dove would make a great Glinda and as who should play Elpheba, I'm thinking Lea Michelle. She's wasting her time on Scream Queens.

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1 hour ago, hoosier80 said:

I still think Dove would be good for the role of Kim MacAfee in Bye Bye Birdie.  Get her hair less platinum, and she looks young enough to pull off 15/16.  She definitely can act, sing, and dance.  More importantly, who do they get for Albert, Birdie, and the dad?

This is what I was thinking too. I didn't know who she was because I never watch the Disney channel but I thought she seemed great for the Bye Bye Birdie role. 

I was thinking maybe Zachary Levi for the Dick Van Dyke role (I never remember character names). I thought Zach was great in "She Loves Me."  Jennifer is older but I don't know by how much. Zachary is late thirties. 

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I thought the 2007 movie version was much better.

The younger actors here were simply not very good. But it DID get better as it went.

Harvey Fierstein, Martin Short and Jennifer Hudson saved it for me. 

I think worst of all, though, was the direction. Poor lighting, sound issues, missed cues, odd camera choices and blocking.

All that said, I enjoy the material so much that I still found a way to enjoy it on a certain level.

Edited by filmfan2480
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We really enjoyed this. The score is so catchy and the cast had a great energy.

I did applaud Jennifer Hudson on "I know Where I'm Going."  Also Fierstein and Short on "You're Timeless To Me."  And while I don't often like Martin Short, I thought he was great as Wilbur.

James Marsden is my favorite Corny Collins, but I actually thought Derek Hough did a good job. I do wish Corny had been the one to declare the show "now and forever integrated."

The actress playing Little Inez was adorable and she really could dance! Still glad Tracy won the title.

The actor playing Seaweed was great, right up there with Elijah Kelley. Ariana Grande pleasantly surprised me. I thought she nailed it.

Kristin Chenoweth is just so damn good in everything and so magnetic I hope NBC knows what they have in her and keep casting her in projects like this. I even tolerated "Miss Baltimore Crabs," my least favorite song in the show.

i think this is probably the last time Fierstein will play Edna, and I'm glad he went out, excuse the pun, big.

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3 hours ago, hoosier80 said:

That's great idea, but I hope they wait a few years.  All we would need is a 50 year old JLo playing Maria or Anita.

Unless NBC decides that it's okay to cast name actors and have them lipsynch to obscure singers, it's not going to happen. It's a REALLY demanding score, and people who can kinda sorta sing aren't going to cut it. And to be honest, it's got a pretty downbeat ending.

NBC clearly took A LOT of their cues from Grease Live (including some of the sets, it looks like), but it looks like other than the "social media circle", the audience weren't allowed to wear clothes that would look out of place in the time period, which was soo distracting in Grease Live. So I did like that. The audience didn't feel intrusive like the Grease Live one did.

The negatives- the framing, the blocking were TERRIBLE. Whoever did the camerawork needs to be fired. And as much as I liked Garrett Clayton from Teen Beach Musical, he didn't really stand out. Although he's definitely gonna hurt when he reads all the mean comments from Zac Efron fans. And Maddie took awhile to warm up and did fine, although I didn't get that "a star is born" moment like I did with Shanice last year with "Home".

I still think Bye, Bye Birdie is kind of a dumb idea- they just did a 60's musical, why do it again? It sounds like they're keeping the title sequence that's in the movie but not the actual musical. J. Lo should be fine.

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I don't know whether I like the girl who's playing Tracy.  Her "Good Morning, Baltimore" was ... not good.

I don't know Dove Cameron, but I guess she's been a good guy in all of her Disney shows?

I never heard of Garrett Clayton.  I guess he played a porn star in a movie recently?

Nobody can touch Kristin Chenoweth.  She is a goddess.

Don't care for the in-show commercials.

What is Darren Criss wearing?

Is Sean Hayes trying to portray Martin Short?

This choreography is sort of frenetic.  I'm not feeling it.

What was with all of the audience screaming at the beginning of the second act?

I'm shocked at how much I'm enjoying Ariana Grande.

I don't think a news anchor in 1962 would wear a beard.

There is just something flat about this show.  I can't put a finger on it, but it doesn't have much energy.

And then right after I say that, JHud kills it.

I'm sorry, but Ariana Grande just swallows her words.  Enunciate, girl!

And now the show is over, but they're fifteen minutes short, so they're going to pad with JHud and Ariana.

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Would Ariana and JHuds song have been cut If they ran over?

i still believe Grease live is the musical to beat. 

Inwant Little Shop of Horrors live. The background dancers in Welcome to The 60s are totally meant for that show.

Edited by WhosThatGirl
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4 hours ago, Frost said:

What role could Jennifer Lopez have?  The mousy secretary played by Janet Leigh?

"The mousy secretary" who gets dressed up in a slinky red dress and crawls under a table trolling a room full of Shriners?  That mousy secretary?

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Derek Hough and J Hud were amazing.  K Chen was really good, too.

I just hate that we were sold a bill of goods as to this being LIVE.  The chorus was tracked throughout.  Don't tell me how difficult it would have been to properly mic and/or perform.  

Despite my major disappointment, I was able to let some of the ridiculous abilities of the above-mentioned folks to escape to a happy place a few minutes at a time. 

I wondered if they were going to change the setting to a different setting (not Baltimore) given the horrible events in the recent past.  The beat was sadly stopped there IRL.  

Overall, it is pretty great that Comcast/Universal invests so much in productions like this.  Here's hoping for more.  I, too, vote for West Side Story. 

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I thought Garrett Clayton was gorgeous, and that's good enough for me!

I found the entire show to be wonderful, fabulous, entertaining! (Not just a flamingo; a PINK flamingo!)

There wasn't one character I thought was miscast. Derek was superb. Ariana has a terrific comedic ability; I only know the movie, but Penny therein wasn't depicted as a consciously funny person. Marty and Sean! Give those boys a SHOW!  Kristen, yep, perfection. And so on! 

Did the Broadway musical not have any "protest"  or dance contest scenes? Did I somehow fall asleep during them last night? The boys in the movie were all swayve and deboner as Tracy walked the line before choosing Linc. Did I mention Garrett was gorgeous? Heh.

As for why not "Oklahoma" or "Guys and Dolls" (love the movie!)----No roles for the young. "Follow on Facebook" would be a massive fail!

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"Bye, Bye, Birdie" is a PERFECT fit for this "live TV for teens" genre"! I mean, come on! It's all ABOUT high school kids (what's the matter with them today?)!

And JLo will be excellent in the role. Janet Leigh wasn't exactly a Spring chicken, nor was she a famous singer! 

I don't know what role JHud could be given. As for Dove's playing Kim Macafee, no. The role needs a sexy young Ann-Margaret type, not a typical skinny actress. Maybe Garrett Clayton can play Conrad. Hee! (Whistles innocently.)

Edited by LennieBriscoe
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7 hours ago, filmfan2480 said:

I think worst of all, though, was the direction. Poor lighting, sound issues, missed cues, odd camera choices and blocking.

Grease Live's production was ambitious, but they made it look easy with excellent direction and blocking. Hairspray Live's clunky camera work showed how hard it actually is. You've got a bunch of cameras, I get it. You can stop cycling between them now. And the prison scene was almost unwatchable whenever they cut to Link's side where his back was facing the camera and he was blocking Tracy, and his backup singers were barely in the frame.

I hope NBC doesn't abandon their theater set productions. Like I don't need for the actors to be shuttled all around Los Angeles in a golf cart between scenes to enjoy the production. I can even live with only 2 or 3 camera angles. 

8 hours ago, madhacker said:

I'm kinda hoping they do Wicked. dove would make a great Glinda and as who should play Elpheba, I'm thinking Lea Michelle. She's wasting her time on Scream Queens.

 I like this idea since Dove has played Kristin's daughter twice now and Idina was Lea's birth mother on Glee.

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I think worst of all, though, was the direction. Poor lighting, sound issues, missed cues, odd camera choices and blocking.

Yup! It felt like they couldn't get through a whole scene without some sort of glitch, from dimming the lights too early in Mama I'm a Big Girl Now and then having to restore them to the random arm that got in front of a camera in You can't Stop the Beat. I thought Maddie was fine, if not extraordinary, but her breathing control issues were pretty noticeable. My initial impression during the first song was that she just stopped singing a couple of times, though I couldn't tell if she forgot the words or if the breathing was messing her up. But it could very well have been mic problems. I imagine the official response will be mic problems regardless, so we'll probably never know.

JHud, Kristin and Harvey were amazing, as expected. I also really liked Andrea Martin. However, some of the teen casting was very bizarre. That guy who played Link must know someone, because he was completely useless. And Ariana Grande can sing, but Penny is an over-the-top, comedic role, and she was nowhere near up for that task. So overall I'd say this was a mixed bag, but the last hou, largely on the strength of their adult veteran singer/actors, was fantastic. 

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8 hours ago, Silver Raven said:

"The mousy secretary" who gets dressed up in a slinky red dress and crawls under a table trolling a room full of Shriners?  That mousy secretary?

Yes, that mousy secretary.  Without her being such a milquetoast at the beginning, the slinky red dress number doesn't have the shock value it needs.

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Why would you put a bunch of black people in a room saturated in red and hardly any lighting? Such a weird choice. That and the prison scenes where you couldn't see more than a quarter of any actors face was the most egregious visual tech mistakes. The biggest issue was the mics which were either cutting out or too low to hear the actors.

Okay, onto to praise. Jennifer Hudson murdered her number. I mean, goddamn woman. Just let me live. Seeing the other actors cry was almost too much, I can only imagine what it felt like in the room.

Maddie Ballio got so much better as the night went on, I don't know how vocally impressive she was but she's so cute and some got some of Tracy's attitude just right.

I mean, honestly other than the technical gaffes it was pretty great. I was smiling throughout and that's all I can ask for really.

BTW does anyone know who Nikki Blonsky pissed off? Not seeing her with the other Tracys hurts because I love the movie so much and she was a fantastic Tracy.

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I wasn't as crazy about Derek Hough as a lot of other viewers were. Obviously he's a great dancer, and he can certainly sing, but I thought he brought no charm to the role. He and Link seemed like father-and-son Ken dolls.

Speaking of Link, I knew nothing about Garrett Clayton going into this. And even without realizing that he just played a gay porn star, or being aware of the rumors about his sexuality, I found it completely impossible to believe him as a heterosexual. Every single thing about him set off my gaydar

Arianna Grande has talent, but I don't think she was the right choice for Penny. She didn't have the comedy chops to have fun with her character's spastic nerdiness. And her diction just stinks.

I liked all of the other casting choices, though.

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It was... serviceable. Nothing more, nothing less. It's very difficult to do live theater like this on television and have the stage experience translate to a tv audience and the repeated commercial breaks (compounded with the entirely unnecessary "live audience viewing party") just derailed the show's momentum.

As far as the casting goes - some hits and misses. Ephraim Sykes is the MVP and the girl playing little Inez (Shahidi Wright Joseph) is someone to watch in the future. I'll happily see Kristen Chenoweth sing the ABC song for an hour and she was perfect as Velma. And it's always a joy to see Harvey Fierstein, who ate up the scenery and delivered a lot of the funniest lines. Martin Short was a pleasant surprise and I was a lot more invested in the elder Turnblads than the young folk. And Andrea Martin is always a joy to have around.

Not a huge fan of Derek Hough, and he was... ok as Corny. And as much as I love Jennifer Hudson (and I'll happily close my eyes and listen to her rendition of "I Know Where I've Been"), she just wasn't believable as Motormouth. Just too young to be convincing as the mother of two teenagers (unless she had them at the age of 12). But someone please write a role for her for Broadway so I can see her live.

The girl playing Tracy... I don't want to crap all over a girl who was cast from an open call but she just wasn't great as a singer or a dancer. "Good Morning Baltimore" was a mess and while she got better as the show went along, she was never strong enough to really carry the production. At least not as a singer or a dancer (but she's a good actor). As for Arianna Grande... please stop shoehorning her into things. The girl can't act her way out of a paper bag. This is a repeated problem with these productions in that they cast big names to draw an audience, regardless of whether or not they're suitable for the role (or can even really act).

There were some fun things that I did like - the little Easter Eggs in the scenery to pay homage to the original film (acknowledging both John Waters and Divine), but for the most part it fell pretty flat for me. After being dissapointed by this, Rocky Horror and Grease, I think it's time to call an end to this experient of trying to bring live musicals to a tv audience unless they're going to do it right.

Edited by Hana Chan
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It was OK, overall, but it just felt...unfinished.  I think it was the constant breaks for commercials and the between-scenes bits.  It felt more like  rehearsal than a completed production.  When I see a show (and I see a LOT of live theater), I want to be immersed in the experience.  The constant interruptions really took me out of it.

And, agreeing on the terrible staging and lighting.  The first interior of the record shop was horrible.  So many bad camera angles,  a lot of poor lighting, and some serious miscues.

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As someone who has never seen the movie or any production, and really didn't know the story, I loved this!  I wasn't paying attention to production snafus, except that I thought Sean's microphone wasn't working that well -- I couldn't hear him singing.  Maybe because I didn't know the songs, like some of the other TV musicals, I didn't notice things like lip-synching or missing words.  (I was just trying to figure out what they were singing.).   I love Sean Hayes, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, and such a treat to see Harvey Fierstein.

It was a fun show and made me want to listen to the music!  I don't care for the inbetween interviews and frankly, didn't pay any attention to them.

So, for the Joe Average, non-theater viewer, this was probably a hit for NBC.

Edited by Thumper
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40 minutes ago, Blakeston said:

Arianna Grande has talent, but I don't think she was the right choice for Penny. She didn't have the comedy chops to have fun with her character's spastic nerdiness. And her diction just stinks.

I think they were trying to ape what Grease Live did casting Carly Rae Jepsen as Rizzo.  Except that Jepsen has a lot of stage presence and Ariana doesn't really.  I do like her, and I have several of her songs on my workout mix, but she's a creature of the studio.  I mean, I didn't see her host SNL, but I did see her as the musical guest when Chris Pratt did, and she wasn't great there either.

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Ariana Grande was on Nickelodeon for about 5 years and was wildly popular (her character was even part of a spin-off), she does have comedic chops but I have no idea what she was doing last night. It was very weird and almost like she kept losing her breath as she got close to the notes she was attempting to hit.

And she can sing live! So yeah, no idea what was going on there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4KZaI_jtKs

Okay, now I sound like an Ariana Grande stand so I'm gonna stop.

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52 minutes ago, Hana Chan said:

And as much as I love Jennifer Hudson (and I'll happily close my eyes and listen to her rendition of "I Know Where I've Been"), she just wasn't believable as Motormouth. Just too young to be convincing as the mother of two teenagers (unless she had them at the age of 12). But someone please write a role for her for Broadway so I can see her live.

Jennifer Hudson played Shug Avery in The Color Purple on Broadway until a few months ago. She famously complained about not getting a Tony nomination.

Edited by ItCouldBeWorse
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Overall a nice production but the movie version was considerably better. Maddie was very good but she did drop a verse in the the opener and during You Can't Stop the Beat, you could tell that she was having some difficulties controlling her breathing. The former was probably and understandably nerves and the latter can be improved with ongoing training which I'm sure she'll get. Derek was perfect as Corny. The man is a true triple threat. What can you say about Harvey? The show is his baby and his Edna was great. Martin Short was very good as well. Jhud blew the doors off in her big numbers. I love Ariana Grande but she just didn't seem right for Penny. She has comedic chops but after seeing Amanda Bynes in the film, Ariana pales in comparison. The actor playing Link was OK but that's about it. Kristen was a bit more subdued than I would have expected. The sets, colors and Jerry Mitchell's choreography were spot on. There were times, however, when the production seemed to drag and I found myself briefly losing interest. The show really would have benefited from the live audience being there throughout. Some of the gag lines fell flat because they need audience reaction to work. Darren Criss and the all of the cutaways were distracting at best. One thing that really irked me had nothing to do with the show itself. We had the audio coming through our Denon AVR. It was a Dolby Digital + 5.1 sound track that was very good but many of the commercials were excessively loud which had me grabbing the receiver's remote to turn its volume down.

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So the ratings werent as great for this production as in past years...maybe because of it airing on a wednesday instead of Thursday...maybe because the movie version was done less than a decade ago...and maybe because of the cutaways to Darren..etc that I dont recall being done in the past.

Bye Bye Birdie will be interesting to see next year.

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I listened to the recorded version of Mama I'm A Big Girl Now and liked it a lot more than the live one last night, but man no matter what I just don't hear any power behind Ariana Grande's voice. Sure she can hit high notes, but it always sounds like she's having to shout to get any range or emotion. As for her enunciation, she has an accent, right? Maybe it wasn't so much that she was mumbling as much as she was trying to sing around an accent. 

For all of the comments about how Link's actor was pinging everyone's gaydar, I wouldn't know because he was so forgettable i had no impression of him. And Derek Hough was a miss for me. His dancing was on point, as expected, but his acting left a lot to be desired. In his defense I'm comparing him to James Marsden who is an actual actor and ridiculously charming (at least in my opinion), but where Marsden leaned so far into the smarmy charm of Corny Collins, Derek Hough seemed to be playing a version of himself. 

All that being said, though, I do love this show and I thought some of this version was great. Harvey Fierstein was as great as I expected and JHud slayed the singing. I already downloaded her version of "I Know Where I've Been." And I thought Martin Short was great as Wilbur. I'm not usually a fan, but he really leaned into the joy of his role and it made it more fun to watch. 

Edited by BabyVegas
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I loved Harvey and Marty Short -- especially when Marty danced and he ALMOST did his Ed Grimley dance!  I must say!

The thing missing from these productions is the interaction with the audience, the LIVE-ness of it all.  You can't really get that unless you put a couple cameras on a real Broadway stage and just film that. 

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1 hour ago, BabyVegas said:

 As for her enunciation, she has an accent, right? Maybe it wasn't so much that she was mumbling as much as she was trying to sing around an accent. 

 

Nope, she's an American, born in Boca Raton Fla. She just doesn't enunciate. I've lost count of how many times I've listened to the beginning of this song trying to figure out what she's saying. I still don't know. 

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Just now, GaT said:

Nope, she's an American, born in Boca Raton Fla. She just doesn't enunciate. I've lost count of how many times I've listened to the beginning of this song trying to figure out what she's saying. I still don't know. 

Oh, I knew that she was an American, but I still thought she had an accent. I stand corrected. In that case her diction is just awful.

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I really enjoyed this. Jennifer and Derek were fantastic. Martin too. Everyone did well. The sound and camera work weren't perfect but for a live show it was very well done.

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18 hours ago, madhacker said:

I'm thinking that Darren really should've played Link as well. Yeah some of you don't really like him but his charisma would've brought Link to life. But he probably didn't have time with him touring playing Hedwig these days.

As for next live musical....while Damn Yankees would be great for Dove, I'm kinda hoping they do Wicked. dove would make a great Glinda and as who should play Elpheba, I'm thinking Lea Michelle. She's wasting her time on Scream Queens.

Besides disliking Darren, I also just didn't want two " Glee" actors to have played the same role. It might've been irrational, but it was how I felt.

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1 minute ago, JustaPerson said:

Darren would suffer in comparison to Matthew Morrison anyway (don't tell his fans that tho...)

Well, with the dancing anyway. The role isn't a big acting or singing challenge. 

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I thought it was OK, but I liked the movie version better.  Not a fan of Derek Hough.  James Marsden could have easily done this version and been a lot better.

The actress playing Tracy was passable, there was nothing about her performance that was exciting in the least.  She tried hard, she just doesn't have "it" that the movie version had.

I'm puzzled by the inclusion of Arianna Grande.  No doubt it was to attract younger viewers, but it was odd that she gets cast as the nerdy sidekick.  I thought she was fairly awful as the sidekick, she just wasn't funny at all.  Then of course she blossoms at the end into a huge pop star, and they add a duet with their other big name star just to showcase their status as big name stars.  Just didn't work for me at all.

I have no idea who the guy playing Link was, but I'm a bit older than the Disney Channel demographic.  He did come across as gay as a day in May, and I'm sure that wasn't the intention.

My favorite part about the movie was "New Girl in Town".  I know that song/sequence was added for the movie, but if they were going to include "Ladies' Choice", another song added for the movie, why not "New Girl in Town"?  Wasn't "New Girl in Town" the only song to really showcase Negro Day?  I loved that part of the movie and I loved the contrast between lily white prim and proper Amber and her posse doing the Mashed Potato versus the Dynamites and their slinky and sassy version.

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2 hours ago, basiltherat said:

I loved Harvey and Marty Short -- especially when Marty danced and he ALMOST did his Ed Grimley dance!  I must say!

The thing missing from these productions is the interaction with the audience, the LIVE-ness of it all.  You can't really get that unless you put a couple cameras on a real Broadway stage and just film that. 

LOL  I noticed a few Ed Grimley pigeon-toe moves too!

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"As for next live musical....while Damn Yankees would be great for Dove, I'm kinda hoping they do Wicked. dove would make a great Glinda and as who should play Elpheba, I'm thinking Lea Michelle. She's wasting her time on Scream Queens."

Wicked would be nice but since it looks likes its Broadway run may not end for a long time, we'll probably not see it on broadcast TV for many years. I get the feeling that Lea is never going back to the musical stage. I'm sure that a producer would love to construct a show for her but pounding the boards 7 to 8 shows a week is a very tough grind and it's been a bunch of years since Lea was in Spring Awakening. On the other hand, you have to give Matthew Morrison major props for jumping right back to Broadway in Finding Neverland when Glee ended. It was so nice to see him return to his roots. Darren Criss as well went to Broadway doing a turn in How to Succeed in Business and then starring in Hedwig and the Angry Inch as it closed its run. I saw Hedwig in San Francisco and Darren was first rate in the lead.

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