7TH ANNUAL ELSIE FEST DEFIES GRAVITY WITH EPIC FINALE AS PERFORMERS RACHEL ZEGLER, LIZZY MCALPINE, JORDAN FISHER, DARREN CRISS, JOHN GALLAGHER JR.,
JOY WOODS AND MORE ROCK THE STAGE AT THE ROOFTOP AT PIER 17 IN NEW YORK.
THE FEST INCLUDED SURPRISE PERFORMANCES FROM *NSYNC’S JC CHASEZ, CHORD OVERSTREET, ANAÏS MITCHELL, ANDREW BARTH FELDMAN, DEREK KLENA, AND MORE
Additional Performances and Appearances from the Casts and Creatives of “Maybe Happy Ending,” “Hazbin Hotel,” “Swept Away,” “Death Becomes Her,” and “Drag: The Musical”
The stars of stage and screen ascended onto The Rooftop at Pier 17 in NY for the 7th Annual Elsie Fest, a one-of-a-kind outdoor Broadway musical festival. Performers included Golden Globe and NBR winner RACHEL ZEGLER (West Side Story, upcoming Romeo and Juliet), global touring artist LIZZY MCALPINE (Older, Five Seconds Flat), JORDAN FISHER (Hadestown, Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen), Emmy and Golden Globe-winner DARREN CRISS (upcoming Maybe Happy Ending, Glee, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Tony Award-winner JOHN GALLAGHER JR. (upcoming Swept Away, Spring Awakening), Tony and Oscar-nominated composer and musician WILL BUTLER (Stereophonic, Her, Arcade Fire), JOY WOODS (The Notebook, Little Shop of Horrors, Six The Musical), and RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars winner ALASKA THUNDERF*CK ( DRAG: The Musical), DARA RENEÉ (Descendants: The Rise of Red), and from Brooklyn Academy of Music’s (BAM) upcoming production of Safety Not Guaranteed, TAYLOR TRENSCH (Camelot, Hello, Dolly!) and NKEKI OBI-MELEKWE (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical).
This year also featured performances and appearances from Broadway shows DEATH BECOMES HER, MAYBE HAPPY ENDING, SWEPT AWAY, and DRAG: THE MUSICAL, as well as the hit Prime Video animated musical series HAZBIN HOTEL from A24 and FOX’s Bento Box Entertainment.
Broadway Rave welcomed Elsie Fest attendees with an epic set of the best showtunes to set the mood. Marie’s Crisis–a festival favorite and famed West Village piano bar–returned to lead festival-wide show tune singalongs.
Festival Highlights:
DARREN CRISS wowed the Elsie audience while performing *NSYNC’s chart-topping hit “It’s Gonna Be Me” when JC CHASEZ joined him on stage. The duo also performed the wildly popular “Bye Bye Bye.” Chasez then exclusively announced to the crowd that he, alongside producer and composer Jimmy Harry, had created a new musical theater concept album, Playing With Fire. Inspired by Mary Shelley’s timeless novel Frankenstein, Playing with Fire marks Chasez’s first major musical theater recording project.
DARA RENEÉ surprised fest-goers by bringing out her High School Musical: The Musical: The Series co-star JOE SERAFINI to perform “Born to be Brave.”
LIZZY MCALPINE brought the crowd to an utter standstill when she performed “Flowers” with surprise guest performer Tony Award-winner ANAÏS MITCHELL, the writer and lyricist of Hadestown.
In their first public performance, Maybe Happy Ending’s co-stars DARREN CRISS and HELEN J SHEN performed the title song, which had the audience gushing for the helper bots.
The Notebook’s JOY WOODS brought the house down when she performed the wildly viral “My Days.”
It was a GLEEFUL reunion when DARREN CRISS was joined on stage with his co-stars TELLY LEUNG, CURT MEGA, and MAX ADLER for a barbershop quartet performance of “Sincere;” CHORD OVERSTREET later joined Criss for a performance of “Movin' Out (Anthony's Song).”
The evening ended with an epic finale where Elsie Fest artists all took the stage to perform the iconic “Defying Gravity” from the multi-Tony Award-winning phenomenon Wicked. The crowd joined in enthusiastically with the New York City skyline as the perfect backdrop to a day filled with celebrating musical theater. Performers included Zegler, McAlpine, Fisher, Criss, Woods, JULIA MATTISON, JOHN GALLAGHER JR., ANDREW BARTH FELDMAN, and more.
More highlights can be found on the Elsie Fest Instagram page here.
Touted as “... the Coachella of Broadway” by Entertainment Weekly, Elsie Fest is produced by Darren Criss, Ricky Rollins, Eleni Gianulis, Jeff Jernigan, Jordan Roth, Dr. Sidney J. Stern and Corey Lubowich alongside Live Nation.
About Elsie Fest:
Founded in 2015, Elsie Fest is Broadway’s music festival, featuring stars of the stage and screen. Past performers include Nick Jonas, Leslie Odom Jr., Cynthia Erivo, Ariana DeBose, Olivia Rodrigo, Sutton Foster, Ingrid Michaelson, Alan Cumming, Rufus Wainwright, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, Aaron Tveit, Evan Rachel Wood, Tituss Burgess, Jeremy Jordan, Keala Settle, Megan Hilty, Jason Robert Brown, Michael Feinstein, Gavin Creel, Lea Salonga, Joshua Henry, Auli'i Cravalho, Eva Noblezada, Lea Michele, Lindsay Mendez, Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin, among others.
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