Jane Lynch will take on new duties as Sue Sylvester this season, with the year starting off with her snarky cheerleading coach having given birth.
NEW YORK — In a clever bit of preview cross-promotion, Jane Lynch will sing “Little Girls” on the April 25 episode of Glee.
That song is the signature tune of the tyrannical orphanage boss Miss Hannigan in the musical Annie, a role Lynch steps into for a limited engagement in the current Broadway revival at the Palace Theatre, beginning May 16.
Given that both Miss Hannigan and Lynch’s Glee character, cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester, share a strictly limited tolerance for the girls in their charge, the number is a perfect fit.
The cross-referencing strategy has been used before on Glee, when Kristin Chenoweth sang Burt Bacharach–Hal David songs from Promises, Promises on an episode that coincided with her appearance in the 2010 Broadway revival of that musical.
Appearing for eight weeks through July 14, Emmy winner Lynch will be making her Broadway debut in Annie. She replaces Katie Finneran, who will leave the production to start filming a new NBC comedy series with Michael J. Fox.
Star replacement casting has frequently provided a boost to Broadway shows. While Annie has been a solid earner since it opened on Nov. 8, the musical now finds itself in a suddenly crowded market of shows for which the prime demographic is “little girls” and their mothers (and grandmothers).
Also competing for that audience now are the more recently opened productions of Rodgers & Hammerstein‘s Cinderella and Matilda, as well as long-running box office behemoth Wicked.
