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MANILA, Philippines – Broadway royalty Lea Salonga has a prolific career throughout which she has lent her signature crystalline voice to film and show tunes.
She has sung for Disney films like Mulan and Aladdin, and of course, musicals such as Miss Saigon, Les Misérables, and lately, Allegiance. Now, the Philippines’ so-called “national treasure” has graced TV screens with a one-of-a-kind performance as she guests on The CW’s musical comedy show, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend follows the story of Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom). Once a successful lawyer based in Manhattan, she left the life she had known to reconnect with her high school flame, Josh Chan (Filipino-American actor Vincent Rodriguez III) in the suburb of West Covina, California.
Lea appeared in the season 1 finale of the show, titled “Paula Needs to Get Over Josh,” which aired on April 18, Monday in the United States (April 19, Tuesday in Manila). She played Aunt Myrna, who treated the guests at the wedding of Josh’s sister to a ballad named “One Indescribable Feeling.”
Watch her acting in a scene at the 1:06 mark in the following video:
The finale takes place at a wedding which showrunner and episode director Aline Brosh McKenna describes to USA Today as “a Southern California juxtaposition of a Filipino bride, Arabian Nights-style wedding to a Jewish guy, in a hotel that looks like Versailles.”
In the scene, as Lea serenades the wedding guests, Josh texts Rebecca, “Meet me outside,” before sweeping her away.
Showrunner Aline shared the story behind Lea’s guest appearance with Vanity Fair, “Lea was somebody that we had started talking about really early on because we were dealing with a Filipino family and we knew we wanted to have someone in Josh‘s family sing in the finale, and it was just like, to dream the impossible dream of having Lea Salonga – and it almost didn’t work out because of her schedule.”
“Several of us almost wept, and then we told Vinny [Vincent Rodriguez who plays Josh Chan] she was going to be in the show, and he actually collapsed to the ground,” she continued.
After the show aired in the US, Lea tweeted, “Oh my goodness, that was soooooo much fun!!!”
Oh my goodness, that was soooooo much fun!!! East coast, thanks for watching! Less than 2 hours for the west coast’s turn! @CW_CrazyXGF
— Lea Salonga (@MsLeaSalonga) April 19, 2016
Check out some of Lea’s snapshots when she took over the Entertainment Weekly Instagram account:
Vincent took this selfie with Lea:
Writing for Vulture, Maria Elena Fernandez described the TV series as “the first TV series to depict Filipino-American family life.” Particularly referring to the Thanksgiving episode that aired last year, she also explained that this was done in one episode with mostly Filipino-American actors.
Vincent also discussed the story behind his casting with Vulture: “It’s cool to have this be my breakout role because it means so much more to me personally that I’m playing a role that is altering network history and putting Filipinos more on the map.”
The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend season finale will air on May 5 on Star World. The channel airs the show every Thursday at 7pm. – Rappler.com
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