Broadway showed up and showed out for Celebrating America, the Tom Hanks–hosted primetime inauguration television event that aired on Wednesday, January 20. A truly staggering number of Broadway stars and performers got together (virtually speaking) to sing a mashup of — you guessed it — “Seasons of Love” from Rent and “Let the Sunshine In” from Hair during the program. There were two small problems, though. While it aired on cable, some streaming platforms didn’t run the video and the video didn’t have chyrons of the singer’s names, leaving viewers in the dark as to who was performing. We took it upon ourselves to try and name as many of the Broadway performers as we could without using Google to look up names or credits after watching the video approximately one (1) time all the way through. The results were as follows:
Seth Rudetsky (on Piano)
Laura Benanti
Anthony Rapp
Christopher Jackson
Keala Settle
Renee Elise Goldsberry
Ruthie Ann Miles
Jessie Mueller
Chandra Wilson (Bailey Alert!)
Ali Stroker
Peppermint
Vanessa Williams
James Monroe Iglehart (maybe)
Wayne Brady
Derrick Baskin
Orfeh and her husband Andy Karl
Andy Karl and his wife Orfeh
Javier Munoz
Daphne Rubin Vega
Mandy Gonzalez
Rosie Perez
Six Time Tony-Award Winner Audra McDonald
Chita Rivera (wearing her Kennedy center honors medal)
Charlotte D’Amboise (dancing on a picnic table)
There were many other performers who participated in the video who also deserve recognition and we encourage you to look them up and/or leave their name in the comments. However, we think naming two dozen Broadway performers based on six-second interspersed clips solely from memory is fairly impressive. “Cell Block Tango” Bernie would be proud.
