Speech! Speech! Darren Criss Thanks Fans After Winning 2012 Broadway.com Audience Choice Award

One of the highlights of Darren Criss’ appearance at the 2012 Broadway.com Audience Choice Awards was his charming acceptance speech after winning the award for Best Replacement. In the midst of hosting the ceremony, Criss picked up a prize for his limited engagement as J. Pierrepont Finch in the Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Criss began by joking that his award was rigged (it wasn’t!), then warmly thanked the fans for their support. Enjoy his speech below, and click here for more scoop on Criss’ big night.

“I’m glad to see Broadway.com kept their end of the bargain, that’s good. Very reliable people, I take back everything I ever said about them. Well, gee thanks. Schucks, this is cool! I would be remiss not to thank Mr. Daniel Radcliffe for giving me shoes to replace in the first place ,and to Craig [Zadan] and Neil [Meron] over there, who were crazy to let that kid from Glee do a show for three weeks, which is absolutely unheard of, and a producer’s nightmare, but you did it and let me do it and we ended up doing pretty ok, so thank you for that opportunity.

“I’m a huge, huge fan and I’m always on Broadway.com a lot looking up new shows. And I’ve always been a theater fan and a person that votes for things and blogs and gets really nerdy about the whole process. People are always asking me, ‘When is the next time you’re going to be on Broadway?’ and I say ‘Well, whenever they let me.’ So between the fan support and my love of Broadway, I hope it’s sometime very soon. And in the meantime, maybe one of the fans at home will get one of these for replacing me. Break a leg!”