Darren Criss Is a Bearded Lady, Lindsay Mendez Has a Crispy Voice & More Lessons of the Week

It’s Friday, and you know what that means—it’s time to grab a glass (OK fine, three bottles) of wine, kick back and read the Lessons of the Week! As usual, some really weird stuff happened. Check out what we learned about puppet sex confessions, Jell-O baths, glittery beards and more below.

Corey Cott Stage-Doored Groffsauce
Before Gigi star Corey Cott became Broadway’s (self-proclaimed) number-one sex symbol, he was a hardcore theater nerd, just like us! He even waited at the stage door for a photo with Jonathan Groff in his Spring Awakening days. Keep the blackmail adorable photos coming, Corey! Remember, we’re all in this together.

Erich Bergen Has a Puppet Sex Den
We’re pretty sure the wild puppet sex in Hand to God is meant to be shocking, but a bunch of Broadway stars were surprisingly cool with it on opening night. Especially Jersey Boys movie star Erich Bergen, who joked that he has a 50 Shades of Fuzz-style puppet dungeon in his apartment. You were just joking, weren’t you Erich? Uh, weren't you?

Wanna Sing Like Lindsay? Eat Chips
Lindsay Mendez revealed a strange tip on Broaway Nosh: Lay’s potato chips help coat the throat before singing. Hmm, this gives us an idea. We think we’ll try eating chips before “Defying Gravity.” It’s time to try eating chips before “Defying Gravity.” And nobody in all of Food Emporium is ever gonna bring us down!

Chip Zien Goes Au Naturel
We had no idea It Shoulda Been You papa Chip Zien was such a rebel! On Sierra Boggess’ video blog, the Into the Woods alum revealed that he never wears makeup on stage—even though his dressing roommate Edward Hibbert has a bunch he could borrow. So Chip, guessing you won’t be playing Hedwig, Lola or Frank-N-Furter anytime soon?

Sutton Foster Is a Fine Wine
The Tony winner has been making lots of new friends lately—first, she met her new pal Frida (um, not Kahlo) on TV’s Younger, and then she spent the morning hanging out with the hosts of Today, where she revealed that she and Frida are not actually 26, but aging gracefully, like a bottle of Cabernet. We'll drink to that. Everybody rise!

Kelsey Grammer Chills in His Undies
Ahoy! The Rockettes are the only ones that don't wear pants. Finding Neverland star Kelsey Grammer's cozy pirate hideaway is also a trouser-free zone. Not only is there a skull-and-crossbones flag and more treasures from the sea, it's so comfy, the captain takes off his hook and drops trou. Box-arrrrs or briefs, Kels?

Gary Barlow Bathed in Jell-O
Kelsey Grammer isn’t the only guy from Finding Neverland who likes to show some skin. We did some digging and found this video of composer Gary Barlow from his early Take That boy band days, featuring the singer-songwriter stripping and covering himself in Jell-O and whipped cream, as one does. Any chance we’ll see an encore performance on opening night, Gary?

James Corden Is Basically Idina Menzel
The new host of The Late Late Show has been hitting it out of the park so far—he even pulled out his best Idina Menzel impression when he dueted with Josh Gad on a medley of Frozen songs. Wow James, you can really belt! Now eat some Lay’s potato chips and sing “Defying Gravity.”
You Can Now Spy on Broadway.com
Calling all theater fans and creepy voyeurs: You can now go all Rear Window on the Broadway.com offices! We’re obsessed with Periscope, the awesome app that lets you create live broadcasts on your phone. Get completely unconfirmed gossip, impromptu star interviews, new Oreo flavor reviews and fangirling sessions at Broadway.com HQ every weekday at 5:00 PM EST. Warning—we’re a little crazy. (But at least we keep our pants on.)

Darren Criss’ Hedwig Has a Beard
The Glee star isn’t just adding new lines and jokes when he takes over in the hit rock musical—he’s also going to be the first Hedwig in history to keep his facial hair. He told Broadway.com he might grow a handlebar moustache and put glitter in it for his debut as the transgender rock goddess. Darren, we know you’re kidding about the beard thing, but don’t even joke about messing with your eyebrows, OK? Twitter will explode.