Unpopular opinion: My ranking of the Broadway Hedwigs:

1. Andrew Rannells
2. Darren Criss
3. Neil Patrick Harris 
4. Taye Diggs
5. Michael C. Hall
6. John Cameron Mitchell

Let me be very clear, this is purely based off of the Broadway performances. I love John Cameron Mitchell and his Hedwig and obviously without him, we wouldn’t have Hedwig. However, that said, his Broadway version of Hedwig was... not as good as some of the others. I’m not gonna go in depth about my reasoning for each placement unless someone asks me about a specific one, but I just felt the need to explain the John Cameron Mitchell one before I’m attacked. So anyways, curious what others opinions are. These are just mine.

ROFL. Taye Diggs cannot sing. Taye Diggs didn't learn the material. His performance was criticized by virtually everyone. I sincerely doubt you saw every single of these Hedwigs because if you had actually viewed his half ass performance, you would think differently. He's a gorgeous man, a straight sex symbol, but that's all he's ever offered Broadway. 

I saw them all except Rannells. My opinion...

Michael C. Hall - phenomenal singing and drama
John Cameron Mitchell - had knee problems and sat for most of the show, but he IS Hedwig
Neil Patrick Harris - strong and funny
Taye Diggs - just not right for the role
Darren Criss - pitchy and too young

Updated On: 1/7/21 at 09:12 PM

I saw them all multiple times, including Euan on tour. Hard to rank in hindsight, as each made the show their own and I had such great experiences every time. Of course the JCM crate shows were for the history books, as well as Taye’s unfortunate turn in what was clearly a last ditch effort to keep the show open.

The biggest surprise for me was Darren, who had a remarkably deep hold on the character in addition to his strong vocals.

Michael’s physicality juxtaposed Hedwig in such a unique way, I loved watching him squirm around the stage battling it out. He was my personal fave outside JCM.

Euan on tour was just incredible. The houses on tour were so much larger than the Belasco but he commanded it while still managing to keep the story intimate.

What makes Hedwig great is 100 people can play the role and you’ll get 100 different, (mostly) valid takes. Darren and Neil leaned much more into the vulgarity of being a rockstar with flipping people off and ad-lib cursing, for example. Not to even mention the amazing Yitzhaks! Lena, Rebecca, Shannon, and Hannah were all really great and unique.

Another huge benefit of this particular revival was how much it literally changed throughout the run - for NPH and AR, the show was a tight 90 minutes, and featured a whole subplot about the box seats. I believe they cut that in time for MCH but I might be misremembering. Then JCM and rewrote a lot of small lines, made some cuts, and extended the show to 100 mins. THEN he added and cut more after his injury. Darren’s shows consistently ran ~105 mins, using the script JCM originally used pre-crate. Taye then struggled so much with the dialogue a lot of his first shows ran 2 hours. And then the tour was tweaked slightly and ran ~105 minutes as well.

It was a perfect revival of what I consider a damn perfect musical.

no one came close to JCM in terms of character/wit/performance. 

I also saw Darren Criss and Andrew Rannells- both did well, but Criss really surprised me with how strong his take was on the character, and he and Rebecca Naomi Jones had a different kind of palpable chemistry that was refreshing (I saw her with JCM also). I did not like Rannells' take on the character really- it was my first time seeing it, and i thought Hedwig came off as bratty, though he had his moments.

 

 

My parents got to see Hall and they thought he was good. 

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NOWaWarning said: "Did anybody see Lena Hall as Hedwig? How was she?"

I saw Lena in SF. She was AMAZING!  I only wish she had been given the role on Broadway. 
I’ll chime in that I saw most everyone on Broadway except Hall and Diggs.  I enjoyed them all except I really didn’t like Darren Criss. That being said he was much improved on tour. 

Updated On: 1/10/21 at 09:44 PM

We saw all but Darren Criss and did see Euan Morton

 

1. JCM standing
2. JCM with crate
3. NPH
4. Andrew Rannells
5. Euan Morton
6. Michael C Hall
7. Taye Diggs

I only saw four out of the six (I was still in college and decided to dismiss Rannells and Criss).

1) JCM - Saw him on his last night. The show ran for at least two hours with ad-libs, encores, crowd surfing. It was the show on steroids (no pun intended given JCM was still wearing the bedazzled sneakers post ankle injury). Probably my favorite night of theatre ever.

2) NPH and MCH were two very different portrayals that were nonetheless each fantastic in their own way. NPH learned into the vulgarity a lot more and the humor was much higher, but MCH played into the dark side of the character more and gave Hedwig an unexpected depth, while also being a fantastic rock vocalist.

...

3) Taye Diggs - Ooooooof. She tried but she was MESSSSSSSSY! I had the misfortune of being front row for this. (FWIW, I didn’t balk at the casting and also it was a birthday gift for my mother, who loved him from “Private Practice” back in the day). He just could not keep it together. It was about a week into his run and he struggled with everything - from the accent (which sounded Jamaican), to the choreography (which was low energy and he struggled to stay on the car prop because he was sweating so much), to the characterization (When you are staring up at a pair of thighs that could probably crack your skull like a walnut - “Slip of a girly boy” my ass). There wasn’t even really a “transformation” at the end because all of the makeup had been sweat off by the time “Midnight Radio” came around.

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ACL2006 said: "It was rumored they were already prepping Lena Hall to replace Diggs. But his reviews were so bad and ticket sales were terrible, they closed the show anyways and let Hall do one show a week on the tour as Hedwig. Wayne Brady was also rumored to be lined up as a replacement."

Sounds right, I believe Lena and Stephen Trask were going to go in eventually. I also know people were clamoring for Pink, but think that was just a BWW rumor? And wasn't Miley Cyrus "approached"? Sooo many possibilities...