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Who Should Replace Ariana Grande?

 The heavy-hitters who have played Dot: Audra McDonald, Bernadette Peters, Annaleigh Ashford, Melissa Errico, Ashley Park, Maryann Plunkett, Carmen Cusack, Andrea Burns, Maria Friedman, Talia Suskauer, Jenna Russell. Heather Headley and Michaela Diamond have done portions of the show in concert. 


These are big names!

One thing that people tend to miss about "Move On." Sondheim was always talking about the marriage of content and form. HOW it's said matters more than WHAT it is. Sondheim's duets were unlike other duets; SS did things beyond the "you sing a verse, I'll sing a verse" format. In Sondheim, voices overlap and become dissonant and then harmonious and then dissonant again.

"Move On" begins with an argument. We're used to this. Dot and George cannot see eye to eye. "I've nothing to say." "You have MANY things."

But something shifts. D and G begin to articulate thoughts that *complement* one another. From Dot:

"Look at where you are, not at where you've been, what you'll be."

From George:

"Something in the light, in the sky, in the grass, up behind the tree..."

George is literally following Dot's instructions. "Inspire": to fill someone with the urge to do or feel something. Once again, George has an ecstatic desire to communicate his own vision of the grass, the trees. He has stepped out of his own head--he is back in the present moment.

My nominee to play Dot is Eva Noblezada. Like Bernadette Peters, EN has a notable mezzo-soprano belt. Like her idol, famous Sondheim interpreter Lea Salonga, Noblezada has enviable diction. She also has a stage presence that is both ferocious and wounded--she is the right choice to take on the role.

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