Time has released its 2024 Time100 Next list, which recognizes icons making an impact outside of traditional power structures. A number of Broadway favorites made this year's list, including Ashley Park, Cole Escola, Shaina Taub, and Reneé Rapp.
Park, a veteran of Broadway's Mean Girls, The King and I, and more, was honored with an essay from Mean Girls writer Tina Fey. "Spending time with Ashley is a cross between Paris Fashion Week, one of those dancing inflatables outside a car wash, and a TikTok compilation of 'funniest jump scares,'" writes Fey. Speaking of their work together on the Broadway version of Mean Girls, Fey says "[h]er singing, comic timing, and heart-wrenching vulnerability were everything we needed."
Taub, the writer and star of Broadway's Suffs, got an essay from Hamilton scribe and star Lin-Manuel Miranda. "Her songs are catchy, muscular, and unforgettable: once you’ve spent an evening with her characters, you’re hooked," writes the Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner.
Escola, currently making a splash as the writer and star of Oh, Mary!, got a tribute from two-time Tony winner Cynthia Nixon, who spoke about Escola's madcap performance as First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. "Playing Mary Todd Lincoln as a lascivious, alcoholic, untalented, wannabe cabaret performer in a tight, 80-minute romp that combines drag, U.S. history, Shakespeare, vaudeville, and, yes, cabaret, the singular Cole Escola has penned the most creative, unexpected, outrageous, and funniest play to hit Broadway since I don’t know when," writes Nixon. "And as an actor, I can tell you that Cole’s jaw-dropping rendition of their unlikely chosen role is a lesson to thespians everywhere in what committing to a character really looks like."
Rapp, a pop artist and star of Mean Girls on stage and screen, was honored by Busy Philipps, who played Mrs. George to Rapp's Regina in the 2024 film version of the 2018 Broadway musical. "When Reneé is onscreen, it’s simply impossible to look anywhere else—her talent is innate and her charisma is palpable," writes Philipps. "When she opens her mouth to sing, what comes out is jaw-droppingly pure and powerful. But it’s when Reneé is just being Reneé that her real superpower shines. She is unapologetically herself. She has no need for a filter because she stands firmly rooted in her beliefs and laser-focused on her vision."
See the complete Time100 Next List at Time.com.
