Omaha's own Andrew Rannells 'lit up the room' in Broadway Backwards, helping raise $423,182 for LGBT Community Center and AIDS fight

The star of the original production of The Book of Mormon and costar of NBC's inexplicably cancelled The New Normal performed before an SRO audience last Monday in a return to Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre in New York City to help raise almost half a million dollars in one night for charity, beating last year's record by about $80,000.
     The event was the ninth yearly installment of Broadway Backwards, a review in which performers (51 in 2014) take part by singing songs written for the gender opposite theirs. A typically hilarious account by Joe Jervis, in attendance, is here, and a recap, from Broadway Cares, which puts on the show, is here, from which the following is excerpted:

     Groff and Rannells each showed sentimental sides that left audience members in tears. Groff tenderly performed "I Got Lost in His Arms" from Annie Get Your Gun combined with "Goodnight My Someone" from Music Man. Rannells lit up the room with a stunning rendition of "The Man That Got Away" from A Star is Born.

The Rannells' rendition referenced above is first up in the YouTube compilation clip below: