NEW YORK (AP) — Lea Salonga stepped onto a Manhattan stage last spring and sang something unusual for her — “Edelweiss” from the musical “The Sound of Music,” a song usually performed by the paternal Captain von Trapp.
It was part of MCC Theater’s annual “Miscast” gala that’s celebrating 25 years with an album of top musical theater stars performing songs from roles in which they would not traditionally be cast. It drops March 28.
In addition to Salonga, the album has performances by an A-list of Broadway: Eva Noblezada, Jonathan Groff, Jeremy Jordan, Ben Platt, Kelli O’Hara, Katrina Lenk, Stephanie J. Block, Rachel Zegler, Raúl Esparza, Heather Headley, Aaron Tveit and Gavin Creel.
Zegler channeled her inner green ogre for “Who I’d Be” from “Shrek,” and Lenk borrowed Tevye’s “If I Were a Rich Man” from “Fiddler on the Roof.” Headley, who originated the role of Nala in “The Lion King,” instead sang Simba’s moving ballad “Endless Night.”
“We have some that are just funny and silly. We have some that actually change the meaning of a song when someone sings them. We have some that’s just a phenomenal person singing a phenomenal song and that’s enough,” says Scott Galina, manager of musical programming and development at MCC. “So it really feels like it captures the breadth of the way a ‘Miscast’ performance can land.”
Other highlights include a live version of “Take Me or Leave Me” from “Rent” by Tveit and Creel, a capture made more special because of the death of Creel last year. And Groff and Jordan sing the two divas’ anthem “Let Me Be Your Star” from “Smash.”
Noblezada gets muscular singing “Go the Distance” from “Hercules,” and Platt gets in a green mood to sing Elphaba’s “The Wizard and I” from “Wicked.” O’Hara submits a tender “Beautiful City” from “Godspell,” while married couple Leslie Odom Jr. and Nicolette Robinson sing “The Human Heart” from “Once on This Island.”
“There’s not a track on the album that you get to and you’re like, ‘Oh, this is a skip,’” says Will Van Dyke, musical director for ”Miscast” for the past six years. “That’s like my goal in everything — you never want to have a skip track on there.”
MCC Theater is a nonprofit, off-Broadway company that delights with its spring gala “Miscast” surprises, which started in 2001 and went online for a few years during the pandemic. To make the new album, the performers were asked to recreate their live songs in the studio, giving engineers a cleaner sound.
Whittling down the various performances over the decades to fit on a 12-album collection — called “MCC Theater’s Miscast: The Studio Sessions” — wasn’t easy but some songs popped out for having made a lasting impact.
“Katrina Lenk is still hearing about people who talk about her singing ‘If I Were a Rich Man,’” says Galina. “These are moments that have become bigger for these people than we certainly ever could have intended.”
MCC Theater will celebrate its latest “Miscast” on April 7 at the Hammerstein Ballroom. It will honor Sheryl Lee Ralph and MCC Youth Company alum and artist Travis Raeburn.
The “Miscast25” lineup will feature performances by Tituss Burgess, Cole Escola, Jordan Fisher, Steven Pasquale, Nicole Scherzinger, Britton Smith, Phillipa Soo, Ephraim Sykes, Jordan Tyson, Michael Urie and Tveit. Funds raised by the gala and the album go back to MCC Theater.
Over the years, “Miscast” has seen the landscape of Broadway change with more unconventional choices in race, gender and age. Galina points to a recent gender-swapped version of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” that transformed the male lead Bobbie into a woman.
“A lot of years before my time at ‘Miscast,’ you would have women singing ‘Being Alive’ from ‘Company’ or ‘Mary Me a Little’ from ‘Company,’” he says. “And now there’s been a production on Broadway with a woman playing Bobbie. So, there are no rules around that anymore, which is amazing.”
