RECAP: Donna Lynne Champlin and Gabrielle Ruiz Shared Stories of Their Time on CRAZY-EX GIRLFRIEND on STARS IN THE HOUSE

Stars in the House continued Monday night (8pm) with Guest Host Andréa Burns with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's Donna Lynne Champlin and Gabrielle Ruiz.

Gabrielle Ruiz talked about IN THE HEIGHTS audition. "My first audition for IN THE HEIGHTS was for the original Broadway launch. The job Krysta Rodriguez booked. I was as green as can be. Just graduated from college, was a dance major and I sang for Telsey the casting company and she said 'do you dance?' and I was like 'yeah I can dance' so I went to callback and sang 'I'm Every Woman' had no idea who the team was...and I'll never forget after singing...Lin [Manuel Miranda] at the back of the table said 'I love that song!' and he started singing with me and I was like 'these people are so much fun!' I didn't book it...and then I went on tour for a year with A CHORUS LINE and was in Rhode Island lucky enough to take a train ride to a callback that they brought me in again because Krysta was leaving for THE ADDAMS FAMILY."

Donna Lynne Champlin talked about the difference between working in TV and Theatre. "As a theatre person, I had no concept of what it was like to do on-camera work...I remember I was so grateful because the crew for the pilot was so generous with me and time is money and it moves so fast and I remember I had done a scene and I was just trying not to crap myself cause I was so nervous and knew I didn't know what I was doing. So we did a scene and then we did a different perspective...and then all of a sudden it was all different...they were like ok rolling and I saw an X sort of six feet away from where the guy had been before and I couldn't put it together that the X was the guy because the guy was there...'Is that X for me? What does it mean? What's happening?' The camera A guy was so great and came over and was like 'are you from the theatre?...' The regular CRAZY EX crew was generous because most of us were theatre people."

Donna Lynne talked about how great Gabrielle was to work with on CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND. "Valencia was only supposed to be two or three episodes...Gabrielle was so amazing and awesome to work with and everyone loved her so much that literally the part of Valencia became what it was through all the seasons."

Gabrielle Ruiz sang "I'm So Good at Yoga" from CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND

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