On Sunday, June 11, the 76th Tony Awards took place at the Union Palace Theater in New York City. There were so many great moments at this year's ceremony, including Ariana DeBose's impromptu opening monologue and Michael Arden's viral acceptance speech, Lea Michele The show ended with a rendition of Funny Girl's "Don't Rain on My Parade." Standing ovation. After her "brilliant" performance, as one fan described it, many viewers were quick to compare Michelle to her Glee character Rachel Berry, Ray Chelle Berry sang the legendary Broadway number many times during the show's six-season run.
"Lea Michele performing 'Don't Rain on My Parade' at the Tony Awards...and there's Rachel Berry," one fan gushed on Twitter. Another fan joked: "It's the Tony Awards tonight and I just watched Lea Michele perform a scene from Glee ." While one user commented: " Glee Group ” is definitely a Lea Michele documentary.”
After her Tony performance, Michelle posted a photo of herself on stage at Union Palace on Instagram with the caption: "Rachael Berry somewhere smiling to her Glee star tribute to the character.”
As Glee fans will remember, Rachel Berry's most famous rendition of the song came in season one's "Sectionals," and the show has since racked up an impressive number of views on YouTube 12 million times. Later in the hit series, Michelle's character went on to perform the Funny Girls classic twice, including in the season five episode "Frenemies" with Berry and Santana Lopez Z (Naya Rivera) sang the song together.
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The 2023 awards ceremony is not the first time Michelle has sung "Don't Rain on My Parade" on the Tony Awards stage. The TV-turned-Broadway star had starred with her in "Glee " as early as 2010. ” partner Matthew Morrison (Matthew Morrisson) sang the song together.