Carrie Underwood Won't Make Country Music, Ramin Karimloo Craves Cookies & More Lessons of the Week

The sun is setting on another week on the Great White Way, but never fear—the lessons are here! From Jefferson Mays' obsession with death to Fantasia Barrino's psychic abilities, the last seven days have been a roller coaster ride of theatrical excitement. Read below to catch up on what you missed, and what you can learn from it!

Carrie Underwood Won't Make Maria a Redneck
Carrie Underwood will soon be rocking the braids, dirndl and look of pure bliss to play Maria Von Trapp in NBC's live broadcast of The Sound of Music, but the Grammy-winning country music star admitted she has a lot of work to do. "I knew I had the furthest to go [of anybody in the cast]," said Underwood, who's been working with dialect and acting coaches for her TV acting debut as the iconic governess. A lot less "Yee-haw" and a little more "Yodel-ay-hee-hoo"? We like the sound of that.

Dead People Really Get Jefferson Mays Going
A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder star Jefferson Mays has death on the brain: He plays eight members of the D’Ysquith family, all doomed to die, in the musical comedy. It seems Mays' real-life fascination with the deceased began when he was a teenager. "All of my crushes were dead," he told Broadway.com when asked if he had posters of rock stars on his wall. Yeesh. So, how does the Tony winner kick back after his show? "We’re fixated on The Walking Dead right now." OK, now you actually have us worried.

The Music of Britney Spears Is Heaven Sent
Move over, Andrew Lloyd Webber—there’s a new Jesus Christ musical in town. And this one will reportedly be set to the tunes of Britney Spears. Spears: The Gospel According to Britney, a tuner about the resurrection of Jesus set to Spears' songs, received a reading on November 7 at Broadway’s Foxwoods Theatre. We’re not sure if the Savior himself would be down with Britney’s tracks, but there’s no harm in trying. Of course, they might be wise to leave "I'm a Slave 4 U" well enough alone.

Sting Has the Hots for Carousel's Enoch Snow
We always knew Sting was one of the more sensitive rock 'n' rollers. (Have you listened to the lyrics to "Fields of Gold" lately? It's practically a Nicholas Sparks plot.) We're thrilled the Grammy winner is getting into the musical theater game with his Broadway-bound show The Last Ship, but it's his love for Carousel that really got us excited. Sting's lovely rendition of "Mister Snow" on Leno has us pining for more. A gender-bending revival with Sting as Carrie Pipperidge?! And now my mind's in a maze.

Fantasia Barrino Might Be the Next Miss Cleo
After Fantasia Barrino’s incredible Broadway debut performance as Celie in The Color Purple, we had a feeling she would come back to the Great White Way. Turns out Fantasia was subconsciously thinking the same thing. The Grammy winner told us she she started listening to a lot of jazz two weeks before she met with producer Scott Sanders about headlining After Midnight. The bottom line: Fantasia's a psychic. Call Ms. Tasia taday, darlin', whatcha waitin for?!

Marc Kudisch Shines as a Murderous Madman
Marc Kudisch has made a career out of playing some of Broadway's best baddies: 9 to 5's lecherous Franklin Hart Jr., Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's spolied Baron Bomburst, Beauty and the Beast's ruthless Gaston and so on. Now fans of the three-time Tony nominee (Kudisch-iples? Sure!) can see him doing his best Jack Nicholson impression as the axe-wielding Jack Torrance in Redrum: The Unauthorized Musical Parody of The Shining. All villains and no heroes make Marc a scary boy.

Lesli Margherita Dresses In a Flammable Pantry
Remember, as a kid, when you dreamed about the glamorous lifestyles your favorite stars were living in Tinseltown or the City That Never Sleeps? Well, week after week, Lesli Margherita has been putting that featherbrained fairy tale to bed. In the newest episode of her vlog Looks Not Books, the Matilda star showed us that her quick change "room" is essentially a combustible closet where they keep router bits, screws and chocolate frosting for Bruce's cake. How, uh, fancy... So this is why our parents told us to stick with school.

Cookie Monster Makes a Delicious Jean Valjean

Sesame Street took a page from Broadway during a recent episode and paid tribute to the hit musical Les Miserables. Cookie Monster and the gang got in the revolutionary spirit with the parody Les Mousserables, which stars Jean BonBon, Flantine, Creamette and Epanini. We recently pitted upcoming Les Miz stars Ramin Karimloo and Will Swenson against one another, but who knew the real battle was between Karimloo and a cookie jar?! Listen, Mackintosh, if the new revival doesn’t include "One Day S’more," we’re protesting.

The Stars of Wicked Want to Banish YouTube
Wicked recently celebrated its 10th anniversary on Broadway, and we had the chance to chat with past and present stars of the blockbuster musical after a special celebratory performance. Obviously, there were a million and one different questions we were dying to ask the stage faves, but we really wanted to know about the YouTube clips that haunt them to this day. And, oh boy, did they have answers! Lindsay Mendez, Katie Rose Clarke, Kristoffer Cusick and more all had horror stories. It's true, no f-bomb or birth-giving-face goes undocumented.

Norbert Leo Butz Would Face/Off with Tveit
You remember the the movie Face/Off, right? John Travolta's an FBI agent, Nicolas Cage is a killer, they actually switch faces, guns get shot, people die, yadda yadda. Well, step aside Side Show, because the next musical vehicle for Norbert Leo Butz and Aaron Tveit should be Face/Off: The Musical. On Show People, Paul Wontorek showed the Big Fish star a fan-made face swap photo of him and his dreamy Catch Me If You Can co-star, and Butz was delighted: "I'm sorry but he looks damn good with my face!" We fangirls (and fanboys!) couldn't agree more!