Broadway.com at 10: The Greatest New Stars of the Decade
It doesn't take 10 years to make a Broadway star. Heck, it can seemingly happen overnight. But as Broadway.com celebrates its tenth anniversary, we're reflecting on the pleasure of watching some enormously talented actors emerge on the scene just as we were doing the same.
Here are 10 performers who surfaced over the last 10 years. You could say we knew them when!
1. SUTTON FOSTER
Though she already had a few Broadway chorus credits to her name, Sutton Foster was virtually unknown in 2000. Her meteoric rise began when she was plucked from the ensemble to take over the leading role in the pre-Broadway tryout of Thoroughly Modern Millie at the La Jolla Playhouse in the fall of 2000. She ended up winning the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical when the show hit New York two years later and went on to garner three other Tony nominations for originating parts in several big Broadway musicals, including The Drowsy Chaperone, Young Frankenstein and Shrek. Foster is now one of Broadway’s most beloved and popular musical theater stars. We love her, and we know you do, too!
If a theater fan knew Raul Esparza’s name in 2000, it was because of his performance as the explosive Che in the tour of Evita in 1999. A year later, Esparza was showing off his high notes when he made his Broadway debut as Riff Raff in the eclectic cast of the Broadway revival of The Rocky Horror Show, which also included Alice Ripley, Jarrod Emick, Joan Jett and Daphne Rubin-Vega. Esparza has proven his talent ever since in both plays and musicals, and he has earned four Tony nominations in all four acting categories (for Taboo, Company, The Homecoming and Speed-the-Plow). Remembering a period when Esparza wasn’t a huge Broadway star certainly does feel like a “Time Warp.”
By the time Broadway.com launched in 2000, Patrick Wilson was already working steadily, in the national tour of Carousel, the Broadway flop Fascinating Rhythm and the off-Broadway cult fave Brights Lights, Big City. But it was his leading turn in 2000's The Full Monty that got everyone's attention. Cut to a decade later: Wilson is a Broadway force to be reckoned with, displaying his range in such shows as Oklahoma!, Barefoot in the Park and All My Sons and a rising star in Hollywood with a string of credits, including the Emmy-winning Angels in America and the films The Phantom of the Opera, The Alamo, Hard Candy, Watchmen and Little Children. No need to beg Wilson to come back to Broadway, by the way. He always does—don’t you love that?
If there were an award for most precocious Broadway star, uber-talented Lea Michele would surely nab it. The Glee gal was a child actress in the 1990s with turns as Young Cosette in Les Miserables and The Little Girl in the original Ragtime, before she took time off to have a regular teen life. She was suddenly back on our radar as a young woman in 2004's Fiddler on the Roof before really turning heads two years later as Wendla in the Tony-winning musical Spring Awakening. Now that Glee is a huge TV hit, Michele is a household name and a red carpet knockout—oh, and did we mention that she was recently named as one of 100 most influential people by Time magazine? Wow.
These days everyone knows Anika Noni Rose from voicing the leading role in Disney’s The Princess and the Frog and for holding her own opposite Jennifer Hudson, Beyonce and Eddie Murphy in the big-screen version of Dreamgirls. But we’re claiming Rose as a theater star first, and we have good reason to do so: After making her Broadway debut as a replacement in Footloose, Rose won attention (and an Obie Award) for her performance in off-Broadway’s Eli’s Comin’ in 2001. By the time she started winning acclaim and eventually a Tony Award for her portrayal of a bright-eyed youngster in Caroline, or Change, she was what you might call “Broadway famous,” and ripe for Hollywood to notice—and boy, did they ever!
“If a four foot eleven chubby New York girl can be a leading lady in a Broadway show, then anything can happen,” Marissa Jaret Winokur memorably cracked in her Tony Award acceptance speech for Hairspray in 2003. The remark shows the star, who made her Broadway debut as a replacement in Grease, for who she is: an irreverent, self-deprecating powerhouse with a big smile and bigger hair. Winning practically every theater award there is for Hairspray launched Winokur’s career in Tinsel Town, where she has garnered much attention, most notably on season six of TV’s popular Dancing with the Stars. Yes, Mama. She’s a big girl now, but we will always think of Winokur as part of the Broadway family.
Matthew Morrison had been a chorus boy replacement in a couple of shows by the time he was cast as leading hunk Link Larkin in the 11th hour for Broadway's Hairspray in 2002. Suddenly, the strong-jawed hunk with the mass of curls was a face every theater fan was swooning over. Morrison continued to work steadily—stretching himself into diverse Broadway shows like The Light in the Piazza, A Naked Girl on the Appian Way and South Pacific. But none of his roles is as iconic as his latest, as dreamy teach Mr. Schuester on the TV sensation Glee. Now that Morrison has hit it big, legions of fans are discovering the immense talents (have you seen him breakdance?) of this charming star.
Sometimes good things come out of not-so-good shows. Ask Norbert Leo Butz, who (after making his debut as a replacement in Rent) burst on the scene with his Tony-nominated turn in the much-maligned Thou Shalt Not in 2001. The recognition propelled Butz into the original cast of mega-hit Wicked and unforgettable roles in The Last Five Years, Is He Dead? and his Tony-and-everything-winning performance in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in 2005. With his ability to slalom from Broadway to off-Broadway as well as drama to musicals, Butz is one of the most exciting theater actors out there. Check him out as a dirty rotten scoundrel of a different sort in Broadway’s Enron and see for yourself.
Laura Benanti started to gain attention as a fresh-faced replacement Maria in the revival of The Sound of Music. Barely 20, we remember her first big walk down the red carpet at the 2000 Tony Awards, where she was nominated for her performance as a silk-voiced chanteuse in Swing!. Her rise continued to win raves in everything from Wonderful Town at Encores! to Into the Woods, for which she was also Tony-nommed, to Nine (as muse to Antonio Banderas!). By the time Benanti won a Tony for her sparkling performance opposite Patti LuPone in Gypsy in 2008, it was clearer than ever that Benanti is at the forefront of a new generation of stage stars.
Performer/composer/lyricist/freestyler… Is there anything Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator and original star of In the Heights, can’t do? The Tony winner, who gave a shout-out to Stephen Sondheim in his 2008 acceptance speech with an homage to the master’s Sunday in the Park with George: “Mr. Sondheim, look, I made a hat where there never was a hat, and it's a Latin hat at that!" A year later, Miranda was collaborating with Sondheim on Spanish lyrics for the Broadway revival of West Side Story. Not bad! It was recently announced that Miranda would reprise his role as Usnavi in the movie version of In the Heights. When you stand in line at the cineplex to see him, remember this: Broadway knew him when!
