Broadway's Newest Star Is Adele Dazeem

March 5, 2014

Allow us to address, for a moment, a subject only tangentially related to dance: The fabulous good-sportiness of Broadway star Idina Menzel, currently headlining If/Then. (Well, there is some connection to dance here: If/Then features choreography by the ever-inventive Larry Keigwin, which you can read more about in the March issue.)

 

By now, you’ve heard about John Travolta’s blunder at the Oscars—the name-butchering heard ’round the world:

 

 

 

Travolta and Menzel have apparently already kissed and made up. (So much for drama.) But Menzel wasn’t above having a little fun with the slip. At the Tuesday performance of If/Then, a surprise Menzel “replacement” appeared in the playbill, with an impressive list of Broadway “credits”:

 


Via slate.com

 

Even better, here’s what the If/Then marquee currently looks like:

 


Via nydailynews.com

 

We thought we’d add a dance spin to the meme. Earlier this week, slate.com created a program that “Travoltifies” names, and we plugged in a few of our favorite mellifluously-named dance stars. Meet “Lyall Blork” (aka Lil Buck), “Dominik Spermons” (Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards), “Maya Knight (with a hard K)” (Maria Kochetkova), “Ashley Bailerey” (Andy Blankenbuehler), and, a personal favorite, “Gemma Parkinsmack” (Georgina Pazcoguin).

 

Will this ever get old? Probably. But for the moment, we can’t get enough.