In May 2025, Great Performances raises the curtain on its eighth annual “Broadway’s Best” line-up, premiering on PBS (check local listings), pbs.org/gperf, and the PBS app. The line-up, which coincides with Great Performances receiving a 2025 Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre recognizing the series’ contributions to the Broadway industry, begins with the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Next to Normal (Friday, May at 9 p.m.).
Caissie Levy stars as a suburban wife and mother living with bipolar disorder and haunted by her past in the production, filmed during the show’s West End transfer from London’s Donmar Warehouse. Before you enjoy Levy’s Olivier-nominated work in Next to Normal, here’s a look at some of her other showstopping performances.
1) Elsa in Frozen
Levy originated the role of snow queen Elsa in the Broadway musical adaptation of the blockbuster animated Disney movie Frozen, opposite Patti Murin as Anna. She belted the beloved showstopper “Let It Go” eight times a week, transforming from a frightened little girl to an empowered young woman during a faster-than-a-New-York-minute onstage costume change into Elsa’s iconic “ice dress,” a glittery confection of beads, sequins and Swarovski crystals designed by two-time Tony winner Christopher Oram.
Levy also made history as the first Disney princess to wear pants onstage. In the show’s second act, she sings “Monster,” which finds Elsa on the run and being hunted, wearing a fierce pantsuit, boots, and a cape. The costume was inspired by Joan of Arc, Levy explains in this Women’s Wear Daily article.
Watch Caissie Levy perform “Let It Go” from the Broadway musical Frozen here.
2) Penny Pingleton in Hairspray
Levy made her Broadway debut in 2006 as the adorably nerdy Penny Pingleton in Hairspray after performing in national tour companies of the show to rave reviews and understudying the role in the Toronto. “Caissie Levy is comic gold whenever she’s on stage,” Fayetteville Online wrote. “Whether she’s exploring the WZZT television station or bumbling through a sock hop dance…it’s sometimes more fun to watch her than whoever’s taking center stage. Seeing her transformation as she finds love in an unlikely place is touching and hilarious.”
Fun Fact: Levy met her future husband, David Reiser, during the national tour of Hairspray. They first met outside the stage door of the Merriam Theater in Philadelphia, where Reiser had gone to see a friend in the show and Levy was wowing audiences as Penny. Mutual friends were trying to set them up. “We literally met for two minutes, I shook his hand and thought he was really handsome and there were sparks. Both of us had been told about the other,” Levy recalled in their wedding announcement in The New York Times.
3) Fantine in Les Misérables
In the 2014 revival of Les Misérables starring Ramin Karimloo as Jean Valjean, Will Swenson as Javert, and Nikki M. James as Eponine, Levy portrayed tragic heroine Fantine, a single mother and factory worker who is forced into prostitution in the first act and dies of tuberculosis in Act Two. Levy delivered the showstopping solo “I Dreamed a Dream,” a song so epic and iconic Aretha Franklin performed it at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration.
It was a dream role in a dream show for Levy: seeing Les Misérables as a child left an indelible impression on her. As she told Rachel Ray during an appearance on The Rachel Ray Show, “I saw Les Miz when I was eight. I was so into the little Cosette with the broom singing ‘Castle on the Cloud.’ I was like I wanna do that, and my parents were like, ‘Oh, look what we’ve started.’”
Watch highlights from the 2014 Broadway revival of Les Misérables, including Caissie Levy singing “I Dreamed a Dream,” here.
4) Rose Stopnick Gellman in Caroline, or Change
Levy played Rose Stopnick Gellman in Roundabout Theatre Company’s Tony-nominated 2021 revival of Caroline, or Change, Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s musical about about a Black woman working as a maid for a Jewish family in 1963 Louisiana. Even though Levy is Jewish, playing Rose — a liberal New York woman who becomes the uneasy new matriarch of a southern family — marked the first time she played a Jewish character on stage.
“It’s so funny because I was always the girl that couldn’t get an audition for Fiddler on the Roof. I’ve always talked about my Judaism and my upbringing, but I’m blonde and a high belter, so for whatever reason, this is the first actual Jewish role I’ve played,” she said in this Kveller.com interview. The experience paved the way for her to portray another complex Jewish character. In 2022, Levy portrayed Eva Merz Jakobovicz in Leopoldstadt, Tom Stoppard’s autobiographical play following an extended Jewish family in Vienna from 1899 to 1955.
Watch highlights from Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2021 revival of Caroline, or Change featuring Caissie Levy, Sharon D Clarke, and cast here. (Video: Courtesy of Playbill.com)
5) Mother in Ragtime
In 2024, Levy starred in the critically acclaimed New York City Center Gala production of Ragtime, directed by Lear deBessonet. She portrayed Mother, the compassionate matriarch of a wealthy New Rochelle family, in the Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens musical based on E.L. Doctorow’s novel following three families pursuing the American Dream in turn-of-the-century New York. The limited engagement starring Joshua Henry as Coalhouse Walker Jr. and Brandon Uranowitz (who played Levy’s husband in Leopoldstadt) as Tateh became the hottest ticket in town, with theater fans buzzing about a possible Broadway transfer. (The buzz was correct: it was just announced that a Broadway revival of Ragtime, directed by Lear deBessonet and starring Levy, Joshua Henry, and Brandon Uranowitz, will kick off Lincoln Center Theater’s upcoming season.)
Levy’s impassioned ballad, “Back to Before,” was universally declared one of the show’s many standout moments. “Her belt-to-the-heavens version of her powerful Act 2 number ‘Back to Before’ is literally soul-shaking,” theater critic Brian Scott Lipton raved in his Theater Pizzazz review.
Fun Fact: Colin Donnell, who played Caissie’s Levy’s husband in Ragtime, is real-life husband to Levy’s Frozen show (and snow) sister, Patti Murin.
Watch Caissie Levy and cast perform highlights from New York City Center’s 2024 production of Ragtime here.
Watch Caissie Levy, Jamie Parker, Jack Wolfe, and Eleanor Worthington-Cox perform “Just Another Day” in Great Performances: Next to Normal here.
Great Performances “Broadway’s Best” line-up is part of Broadway and Beyond, a special collection of theater and arts programming from The WNET Group premiering on-air, online, and YouTube. If you live in the tri-state area, visit thirteen.org/broadway for more information.
Elisa Lichtenbaum | @elisavontap
Elisa Lichtenbaum is a Senior Writer at The WNET Group, where she is editor of the monthly THIRTEEN program guide and writes about arts and culture.
