STAGE TO SCREENS: Winners of "The Glee Project" Revealed; Are They Future Broadway Stars?

By Kenneth Jones
23 Aug 2011

Samuel Larsen
Samuel Larsen
Photo by Andrew Eccles

Gleek alert! The reality TV talent competition known as "The Glee Project" ended Aug. 21 with the surprise announcement of two winners who will star in the third season of the hit series "Glee."

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Damian McGinty, the deep-voiced Irish lad with a taste for the music of Dean Martin and Bobby Darin, and Samuel Larsen, the California guy with dreadlocks and a tattoo that reads "Jesus Christ," were picked as co-winners of "The Glee Project," a reality-TV talent competition that promised to give one young performer a seven-episode arc on the third season of the hit TV series "Glee."

The winners — two, not the promised one — were announced on the Aug. 21 final episode of season one of "The Glee Project," hidden away on the Oxygen network. A second season is currently in the works. The co-win was a surprise to viewers, and to the ten other booted contestants in attendance for the finale announcement, which was made by "Glee" producer and co-creator Ryan Murphy. The producers also promised two runners-up (Alex Newell and Lindsay Pearce) a two-episode spotlight in the coming "Glee" season that begins in September. It would seem a safe bet that the eight other rejects — including diminutive Matheus, self-proclaimed "big girl" Hannah, lanky indie-rock kid Cameron (named fan favorite), who all display outsider qualities — will likely resurface somehow in the "Glee" universe, though nothing to that effect has been announced.

It's well known that the Fox TV series "Glee" has crossover appeal for musical theatre fans. In a love-it or hate-it frame of mind, they faithfully watch the comedy-music series — about misfits who sing in a high school glee club — to see how songs will be used (or misused) to tell story and explore character. Classic show tunes are often reinvented on "Glee." Does "Rose's Turn" sung by a gay boy struggling with bullying make any sense? Who cares, as long as Stephen Sondheim approves? And he does. He sang the show's praises in a 2010 interview with Playbill.com. 

Lea Michele
FOX-TV

Broadway stars Lea Michele (Spring Awakening, Ragtime) and Matthew Morrison (Hairspray, South Pacific) went West to take roles on "Glee." The opposite migration begins this season. It was recently announced that Darren Criss, a breakout star of "Glee," who plays gay crooner Blaine Anderson, will succeed Daniel Radcliffe in Broadway's How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying in January 2012. Just as "American Idol" has fed Broadway shows, with Fantasia and Constantine Maroulis and others, it's thought that "Glee" will help populate commercial stage musicals in the future.

Reality TV, unreal though it can be, occasionally picks the genuine article. Laura Osnes, who was cast as Sandy in Broadway's most recent Grease after winning a TV talent competition ("Grease: You're the One That I Want"), has surprised cynics and gained the respect of the legit community by succeeding Kelli O'Hara in Lincoln Center Theater's South Pacific, playing earnest Hope Harcourt in the current Tony Award-winning Anything Goes and finding depth as outlaw Bonnie Parker in regional tryouts of the musical Bonnie & Clyde (she'll reprise it on Broadway this fall).

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