The Cher Show's Micaela Diamond on Crying Over Lin-Manuel Miranda, Becoming 'Buddy-Buddy' with Cher & More

There have been countless Cher impersonators, impressions and wannabees over the Oscar-winning diva's decades-long career, but only one person can say she made her Broadway debut telling one-third of Cher's life story with the support of the icon herself. And that person is main-stem newbie Micaela Diamond. In a recent episode of Broadway.com's #LiveAtFive, 19-year-old Diamond shared that taking on the role of "Babe" Cher in The Cher Show was a gamble. "I was already going to Carnegie Mellon for musical theater and two days before I left I booked The Cher Show and didn't go to college," Diamond said. "It was just for the lab, too. I didn't have a contact for Broadway so it was a bit of a risk. I could have not done anything for the rest of the year and gone back to school."

Thankfully for both Diamond and the thousands of people flocking to the Neil Simon Theatre, she stayed with the production and has been performing alongside Stephanie J. Block and Teal Wicks, who complete the Cher-fecta. "I'm so glad I have Teal and Stephanie who have taken me under their wings heading into Tony season," Diamond said. "They've been through this so I can just go along and see all this for this first time. I kind of have this naïveté that they're latching onto as well. We have this balance."

Playing the living legend on Broadway means that a slew of celebrities have visited Cher-land, and some have left Diamond more starstruck than others. "Meeting Lin [-Manuel Miranda] was cool, I'm such a theater nerd," Diamond said. "I sat front row at Hamilton in its first month, I won the lottery and sat there sobbing. He recognized me at the stage door like, 'Oh you were in the front row crying, right?' It was a moment."

In the past five months since The Cher Show arrived on Broadway, Diamond has slowly begun to form a kinship with the woman who started it all. "In rehearsal, we would say Cher's such a planet because she has this gravitational pull," Diamond said. "We started being a little buddy-buddy. I got a knock on my door [at The Tonight Show] and Cher wanted to see me in her dressing room. She was like, 'Could you help me sing this one line?' I'm happy to be the back-up plan for Cher, but not for anyone else."

Catch Diamond in The Cher Show, now playing at the Neil Simon Theatre.

Watch the full episode of #LiveatFive below!