“Anytime Lizzo wants to do Spring Awakening, we will have her,” Jonathan Groff tells PEOPLE on the red carpet at the 75th annual Tony Awards
Lizzo’s Spring Awakening dreams may come true after all!
Back in April, the Grammy winner, 34, posted on TikTok that she would have given just about anything to be at the original Broadway cast’s one-night-only reunion concert. And at Sunday’s 75th annual Tony Awards, stars Lea Michele, Jonathan Groff, John Gallagher Jr. and Skylar Astin say the door is always open for Lizzo to join them.
“Anytime Lizzo wants to do Spring Awakening, we will have her,” Groff tells PEOPLE. “Yes, please. She’s a member of the cast whenever she wants.”
“It’s gonna happen. We’re going to will it to happen,” adds Michele, revealing they “may have asked [Lizzo] to come and perform with us tonight, but she was unfortunately unavailable.”
The cast — who reunited again for a performance of “Touch Me” at the Tonys — say they were thrilled when they first learned they had a super fan in the “About Damn Time” singer
“We all totally freaked out,” Michele recalls. “I [initially thought her TikTok] can’t be real.”
Astin shares that his sister sent him the TikTok posted by Lizzo. “She’s a huge Lizzo fan — as am I — and it’s crazy. I’m still at a place in my career where athletes or artists, or people that I look up to, know who the heck I am it’s crazy.”
Based on the 1891 play by Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening has been praised for its depiction of such topics as sexual identity, rape, abortion and suicide, telling the story of teenagers discovering their sexuality in 19th-century Germany.
And though Lizzo missed April’s concert, it was recoded as part of HBO’s acclaimed Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known documentary.
“The whole journey that we’re having right now with this amazing reunion tour that we are getting to have together is so wonderful because we are having this privilege of introducing Spring Awakening to this generation… before the age of social media,” Michele says at the Tonys.
“So now with our documentary, Those You’ve Known on HBO and HBO Max, and also superstars like Lizzo posting about Spring Awakening. We’re so excited to have so many new young fans, young and old, learning about Spring Awakening.”
Last year, original cast member Lauren Pritchard told PEOPLE that she and Groff were the driving forces behind their 15-year reunion concert on Broadway.
In January 2021, Pritchard and Groff began reaching out to the entire cast and creative team. “Everyone said yes immediately,” said Pritchard, “and by the end of January we had everyone finally reconnected.”
Michele told PEOPLE earlier this year that she “never thought” the reunion would actually come to fruition. “In my mind, I was like, ”This is never going to happen.’ ” However, she added, “The power of Jonathan and Lauren and our mutual love and respect for them as a cast, it was this impossible thing that they made possible.”
She added, “To have the opportunity 15 years later to reconnect and reintroduce ourselves to each other as adults having grown and lived so much life was really so healing and wonderful for us.”
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