Aaron Tveit Needs a Shoulder to Cry On, Elphaba Has Sympathy for the Devil & More Lessons of the Week

Never fear, the lessons are here! It’s Friday, our favorite day of the week, which means it’s time to revisit the 10 most important things we’ve learned in the past seven days. From a Broadway hunk’s sob session to the weird body parts Ethan Hawke wants to stir in a pot, we’ve learned a lot of super-strange stuff this week. So let’s get down to business! Check out this week’s lessons below.

Aaron Tveit Is a Crybaby
You’d think after playing an undercover FBI agent on Graceland, Aaron Tveit would have become a tough, macho dude, but we’re happy to know he’s still in touch with his sensitive side. At the opening night of Big Fish, the star admitted to Broadway.com that he “cried his eyes out” during the musical’s emotional closing number. Aaron, you go ahead and let it out! Anytime you feel yourself welling up, there are 5,000 Tveitortots on Tumblr standing by, ready to offer a shoulder to lean on (and an animated GIF of you in tears).

In the Midwest, Laura Osnes Passes For Arabian
Cinderella star Laura Osnes and her blond, blue-eyed husband, Nathan Johnson, are about as all-American as you can get, but when they first met at a Midwest community theater, they were playing an Arabian princess and her street-rat boyfriend, Aladdin. Both understudies, they were suddenly promoted when the real stars had an unexpected (and bloody) collision. Luckily, the always prepared Osnes had already been fitted with brown contact lenses by her optometrist dad. Because that makes the whole thing way more believable.

Wanna Star on Broadway? Cook Meth!
Put away that application to Carnegie Mellon. No need to attend that 8 a.m. open call. Bryan Cranston has proven to aspiring actors everywhere that the only thing you need to do to get a role on Broadway is do a really awesome job cooking “blue sky” (a.k.a. meth) on TV. After winning three Emmys in a row as Walter White on Breaking Bad, Cranston is headed to the Great White Way as Lyndon B. Johnson in the new bio-play All the Way. So hey, it could happen to you. Now start selling those drugs!

Lesli Margherita Stuffs Her Bra
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from our video bloggers, it’s that Broadway stars have to wear really weird things onstage. Billy Porter, for example, cakes his face in drag makeup, then covers that in flesh-colored neutral makeup to look like he isn’t wearing any, then puts more drag makeup on top. This week, brand new Broadway.com video blogger Lesli Margherita revealed the extra baggage she’s packing onstage every single night in Matilda—not one, but two mics in her bra! Damn, no wonder Mrs. Wormwood is always so “Loud!”

Ethan Hawke Might Secretly Be a Cannibal
The ghoulish new Broadway mounting of Macbeth begins performances right before Halloween, so to get into the holiday spirit, we asked the cast which items they’d put in their own creepy witches' brew. The company members came up with some delicious ingredients, but title star Ethan Hawke’s items were by far the weirdest, including George Bush’s thumb, the hair of Keith Richards and Elvis’ toenail. Oh and Ethan, thanks inviting us to your house for dinner, but we’re, uh, busy.

Elphaba Is an Aging British Rocker
Many things have been said about Elphaba, the greenest girl in Oz, but until Julia Murney’s Broadway.com Role Call feature, we never knew the not-so-wicked witch was hardcore! “Elphaba is the Mick Jagger of [Wicked], and the role is intensely satisfying,” she told us. Does that mean Glinda is Keith Richards? And does that mean Ethan Hawke is going to start hanging around the stage door of the Gershwin Theatre, hoping to grab some hair for his cauldron?

Elizabeth Olsen Has No Idea She’s Famous
While waiting for the subway last week, Elizabeth Olsen was completely gobsmacked to see the paparazzi taking photos of her. “Where is that coming from?” she later asked Broadway.com. “Who are [they] really looking for?” Uhhh…the headliner of off-Broadway’s Romeo & Juliet? The star of that great movie with the impossible-to-remember name (Martha May Marissa…Mini-Marshmallow)? The beautiful sister of the legendary Olsen Twins? The star of the forthcoming movie Kill Your Darlings? Pretty sure it’s you, fair Juliet.

Corey Cott So Would’ve Been Friends With Us in High School
Ever wonder what Newsies stud Corey Cott was up to before he was hawking papes at the Nederlander Theatre? Turns out, he was sitting at his computer, watching Ask a Star videos on Broadway.com. When Cott came to our studios to film his own Ask a Star feature, he said (adorably, we might add), “I used to watch Ask a Star all the time in high school, so thank you so much for watching this—I feel like one of you guys.” In a word, awwww.

Let’s Have Bryce Pinkham Write a Musical
Usually when we ask a Broadway star what their new show is about, they give us a short description of the plot and call it a day. A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder star Bryce Pinkham, on the other hand, invented an entire scenario where Gilbert and Sullivan and Charles Dickens got together to watch Downton Abbey, took hits of laughing gas and then wrote A Gentleman’s Guide together. Uh, Bryce? We have no idea what the heck you’re talking about, but we love it.

Zachary Levi’s Life Is Like a Box of Chocolates
In the nail-biting conclusion of Broadway.com’s First Date Flirts series, our hero Zachary Levi revealed which fictional character’s love life he relates to the most. No, it’s not Superman. It’s not James Bond. It’s Gump, Forrest Gump. “I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is,” Levi recites from memory in a startlingly accurate impression of Tom Hanks as Gump. Quick, someone write Run, Forrest, Run: The Musical! Bryce Pinkham, we’re looking at you.