Megan Thee Stallion, the rapper turned Broadway rookie, returned to the stage Thursday night, resuming the role of Zidler in “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” after falling ill during a performance earlier in the week.
A 31-year-old Grammy winner, she showed no signs of the fatigue that had resulted in a trip to the hospital two days earlier. As the top-hatted impresario of the Moulin Rouge nightclub and the bawdy tone-setter for the show, she scampered, preened and, yes, dropped it low while appearing as one of the featured performers of the two-and-a-half-hour show.
Megan Thee Stallion was entering the second of an eight-week stint with the production when she fell ill during her performance on Tuesday. She was rushed to a hospital, and another actor stepped in finish her role in Tuesday’s show. “I really tried to push through my performance but I just couldn’t,” she said in a social media post Wednesday, before missing that day’s matinee and evening shows. She added that she needed a day to “rest, reset, and take care of myself the way I should have been.”
Before the curtain was raised on Thursday, Renee Curry visited the merchandise booth, where Megan-related tote bags were on sale. She picked out a poster of the artist in a get-up similar to the one Curry was sporting — a red brocade corset top and a black skirt with fishnets. “It was inspired by her,” Curry said. “I went all out. I had to.”
In the first week of her performances, box office grosses had increased 39 percent for the show, which will close in July after seven nonconsecutive years on Broadway. Curry said she had purchased tickets as soon as the rapper’s run, which continues through May 17, was announced, but she was spooked by Tuesday’s news. “It was really actually nerve-racking,” she said. “I was nervous for her.”
At the night’s finale, when Megan took center stage to run through a short medley of hits — “WAP,” “Body” and “Savage” — the audience leaped to its feet with the raucous energy of a bachelorette party.
Aidan O’Connor and Haylee Nguyen had flown in from Los Angeles to attend Tuesday night’s show, and they returned to the Al Hirschfeld Theatre Thursday to see Megan perform the role in full. “At first, we didn’t know what was going on — nobody did,” Nguyen said of Tuesday’s events as she waited near the stage door after the show. “After we found out, it was like, hope she’s OK. And we’re back today, and she’s doing a lot better.”
They estimated that they had spent over $1,000 on tickets for both shows.
“We love musical theater, but we’ve been Megan fans for, like, ever,” O’Connor said.
Elena Bergeron is an editor and writer in the Culture section of The Times.
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