Broadway Gals Elphaba, Mimi and Violet Among Entertainment Weekly’s Top 100 Characters
Several Broadway personalities, including Rent’s Mimi Marquez, Wicked’s Elphaba and August: Osage County’s Violet Westin, have found a home on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years, as revealed in the magazine’s June 4 issue.
Rent bad girl Mimi Marquez named Broadway's most memorable character, placing 77th on the list. What made her so unforgettable? “There was an innocence about Mimi’s spirit and desire for life, which was completely antithetical to her death wish,” Daphne Rubin-Vega, who received a Tony nomination for originating the role in 1996, told the magazine. Landing two spots behind at number 79 was Wicked’s misunderstood witch Elphaba, a role that earned star Idina Menzel a Tony Award. Pill-popping August: Osage County matriarch Violet Weston was 97th on the list. “I was always looking for the ways to humanize her,” August playwright Tracy Letts told the magazine of the role that won Deanna Dunagan a Tony. “On the one hand she’s fiercely protective of her family, and on the other she hates them for instilling that kind of maternal quality in her.”
Several other familiar Broadway faces also made the list. The number 11 spot went to Shrek, the animated green ogre whose film franchise transformed into a full Broadway musical in 2008. Jennifer Hudson’s portrayal of Effie White in the film adaptation of Dreamgirls landed at number 68, although EW acknowledged the role was originally created on Broadway by Jennifer Holiday in 1981.
Several current Broadway stars’ past TV roles were also featured. La Cage Aux Folles’ Tony-nominated star Kelsey Grammer’s long-running TV doctor, Frasier Crane, landed at number 27. Sean Hayes, this year’s Tony host and a nominee himself for Promises, Promises
