Before she was a pop sensation, Ariana Grande made her Broadway debut in "13: The Musical." She was one of thirteen kids in the Broadway show that ran for only a few short months in 2008. The show has since been turned into a movie musical made for Netflix – which begins streaming Aug. 12.

"She was as gifted a singer at 14 years old as she is now," the musical’s composer and three-time Tony Award winner, Jason Robert Brown tells GRAMMY.com. Brown believes Grande was always destined to be a star, but he does feel like he’s been part of the talent development for the many teenagers who’ve starred in the show over the years. "They learn something about how they want to perform from it and it directs them forward," he explains.

The Netflix adaptation stars Eli Golden, as Evan, a Jewish 12-year-old who moves to a small, non-Jewish town in Indiana right as he’s about to become a Bar Mitzvah. He tries to make new friends so they will all come to his party. Debra Messing plays his mother and the pair share a poignant duet called "It Would Be Funny," one of three new songs Brown wrote for the film.

It’s been a busy year for Brown whose new musical, "Mr. Saturday Night" (based on the 1992 Billy Crystal movie of the same name), opened on Broadway also starring Billy Crystal. He is preparing for the highly anticipated New York City production of his musical "Parade" (in which he won a 1999 Tony Award for Best Score) starring Ben Platt ("Dear Evan Hansen") and Micaela Diamond ("The Cher Show"). He’s also written the music for "The Last Five Years" and "Honeymoon in Vegas."

GRAMMY.com spoke with Jason Robert Brown all about bringing 13 to Netflix, writing a new song for the film inspired by Grease and one of his favorite memories of working with Ariana Grande that you can hear on the cast album.

What was it like revisiting the show? 

I haven't stopped revisiting the show since [book writer Robert Horn and I] wrote it. We did it originally at the Paper Mill [Playhouse in New Jersey] in 2006. Then we did it at Goodspeed [in Connecticut] in 2007. We did it on Broadway in 2008. I did a new version in London in which I directed. That has been the version that has been out in the world since.

In all of that time, Robert Horn and I were always working on what's a possible idea for how this could be a movie. We had written several versions of a screenplay before Netflix even came to us. 13 was always a show that we always knew we were gonna have to keep coming back to.

You always have to keep your eye on anything that's a contemporary story so it doesn't get dated. There was a lot in the original draft that was of its moment, but does not feel of its moment anymore. Teenagers are different than they were in 2008. It's always fun to come back to the show, because I love these characters and I love this material. But it's always a challenge to find out how to make it say what it has to say in slightly different ways.

Tell me about writing three new songs and why you wrote them. 

I wrote new songs for a bunch of different reasons. The story of the movie is different than the story of the [Broadway] show. There were some things that happened in the show that had all these great songs attached to them. When we got to [working on] the movie, those songs don't make any sense anymore.

So when we lost some of those songs, we had to come up with new ones. When Evan first gets to school, we had an opportunity to introduce the kids in the town in a much better way. I got to write this really great song for Brett (the head of the football team played by JD McCrary,) and for Kendra (the head cheerleader played by Lindsey Blackwell), called "I've Been Waiting" and it talks about their dilemma which is how they've been waiting all summer to get together.

It reminded me of "Summer Nights" from Grease. 

That was certainly a model in a lot of ways. "Summer Nights" is the two lead characters talking about what they've done all summer to their respective crowds. Without us doing it intentionally, that was exactly the same position that this song was going to be in. Why run away from it?

It was also an opportunity to say, alright, what is the music that these kids sing? The music I wrote for them to sing in 2008 sounded like 2008 music. I thought let's get closer to what they sing now. I got to write what my daughter calls a "bop." When I was working on the movie, [my daughters were] 15 and 11. I showed them everything that was new and got their reactions. I didn't always listen to them, but I did my best to watch their eyes and see how they responded to material.

How did you get Debra Messing, who plays Evan’s mother, to sing in the movie? 

The show on Broadway had no adults in it. For the movie, that wouldn't make any sense. So we put in the parents: Evan’s mother, his father and his grandmother. His mother is played by Debra Messing who, on top of being an extraordinary comedian, is a great singer. The whole point of having Debra Messing in the movie is she should have a moment. So I got to write a song for her and her son to sing. I don't think Debra would have been interested in doing the movie musical if she didn't get to sing.

Getting her to sing the song was the easy part. It was really this great give and take about her ideas about being a mother. [In real life] she is a divorced mom [like in the movie] with kids who are almost exactly Evan’s age. So she had a lot to say about what that experience was. Obviously all the other songs are just kids singing. It was just nice to have a second where the grown up had a little perspective to offer.

What stood out to you about Eli Golden, who plays Evan? 

For me, it was very important that the Jewish characters be played by Jewish actors. There’s an idea that anyone can play Jewish – it's not a race. I don't think that's true. I've seen a lot of Jewish characters played in ways that feel inauthentic. So much of the movie depends on the fact that there is one Jewish kid in the middle of a town of non-Jewish kids. It is important he feels like an outsider and like he doesn't entirely belong.

To have Debra, Rhea Perlman (Evan’s grandmother), Peter Hermann (Evan’s dad), Josh Peck (Evan’s Rabbi), and Eli all be Jewish centers their experience in a very specific way. I wanted to make sure that the Jewish experience was not being portrayed in a way where it was played for laughs. What was wonderful about Eli is he is a New York Jewish kid and he brings that energy to it. At the same time, there's something that is so charming and approachable about him.

What do you remember about Ariana Grande’s audition and casting her in the show? 

She sang Mariah Carey. She opened her mouth and we said "we have cast her." She was always an extraordinarily talented creature. So many of those kids in that original company were. Not only did Ariana bring it, but it happened so many times during the casting of this movie.

I don't take too much credit for Ariana because she was going to be famous no matter what happened. I do feel like we got to give her this little showcase where the world got to see her for the first time.

Any favorite memories from working on the music with her back then in 2008? 

If you listen to the opening number in the original cast album there are a series of four solo riffs that each of the kids do at the end of the song. The kids made those up themselves. And the way that it all worked was that I took all 13 kids in the company around the piano and I just kept playing those four measures of music over and over again. I would point to them and I would say sing your riff.

I got to Ariana and she sang this sort of perfect Whitney Houston riff right at the end of the song. It was amazing. What I remember specifically as she sang it was everybody just started laughing because we were all like well we can stop doing this now. We know what one of the riffs is going to be.

Do you stay in touch? I know you did a concert in 2020 with her on Zoom, which I watched. But does she consult with you at all?

She doesn't need to consult with me. We're friends. So every once in a while we text each other and we check in. We usually are talking about our experience doing 13. She's still very close with Liz Gillies, Aaron Simon Gross and Graham Phillips. There are times where, at midnight, suddenly I'll get a group text from all four of them because they're all hanging out together in Los Angeles singing all the songs from the show. That happens much more often than you would imagine.

Now you have a new generation of teens who could become the next Ariana Grande.

What I'm really excited about is that this has the opportunity to inspire this whole other generation of kids. The show was on Broadway 14 years ago; it certainly didn't change the world when it opened. I’m so honored and thrilled that all these years later, it's still making a mark on this generation. It's sort of so weird, but it's really exciting. And I think the movie is designed so well to talk to kids of this generation.

You have "Mr. Saturday Night" on Broadway right now and soon "Parade" at New York City Center.

The real thrill is that Ben Platt really wanted to do it. He has always loved the show and he really wanted to find a way to do the part. For several years now, he's been working with [director] Michael Arden trying to figure out a way to get it up on stage. It's this fantastic opportunity to revisit that piece which I love so much.

One of the tricks of "Parade" is that it's a big show and it was designed to be big. So, it's probably too expensive to do a traditional Broadway revival. The great thing about doing it at City Center is we can do it with the full cast and the full orchestra and really give it its due. It's a piece that means so much to me and to my family. It means so much to be able to remember [its director] Hal [Prince] and memorialize the work that we all did together.

Everyone on Twitter wants to see this back on Broadway so everyone is hoping it transfers like "Into The Woods" just did.

That would be totally fine by me.

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Twenty years ago, the Broadway-shaking musical 'Wicked' opened its doors in New York City — and the theatre world was never the same.

Based on Gregory Maguire's book Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West — itself influenced by L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz — the musical debuted on Broadway on Oct. 30, 2003, six months after it premiered in San Francisco, California on May 28.

Two years later, the musical was honored by the world's leading society of music people; it won the golden gramophone for Best Musical Theatre Album at the 2005 GRAMMYs.

Fifteen years and numberless inspired performances after its premiere, Ariana Grande, Ledisi and Adam Lambert as well as GRAMMY winners Pentatonix performed with original cast members Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth to celebrate 'Wicked,' in a performance dubbed the "Wicked 15 Anniversary Concert."

Also back in 2018, the play about the green witch named Elphaba also garnered a special called A Very Wicked Halloween, starring the aforementioned musical luminaries.

"The themes of the show, the love and friendship aspects," "Wicked" star Kristin Chenoweth told the San Francisco Chronicle at the time. "We can look at these two characters looking forward to seeing everything."

For Mitch Grassi from Pentatonix, it was a full-circle moment for him to perform in the special. "It's a full circle moment, we grew up with this show and the [album] kind of shaped us as performers," Grassi told Playbill.

'Wicked' is still on Broadway — and is about to be on the silver screen! On Nov. 27, 2024, Cynthia Erivo and Grande will star in Wicked: Part One, a film adaptation of the play. (The sequel, Part Two, is scheduled to release on Nov. 26, 2025.)

And on the stage proper, the team behind 'Wicked' is plotting a special anniversary show at the Gershwin Theatre — and on Oct. 30, the anniversary proper, the Empire State Building will light up green in commemoration of the show.

On Halloween, the New York Public Library will hold a free panel discussion about the musical, featuring panelists in book writer Winnie Holzman, producer David Stone and composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz.

And after spooky season concludes, traveling iterations of the show will continue to roll on throughout the world — with a home base in London providing the (slightly altered) experience for Wicked fans in the United Kingdom.

Whether or not you're able to catch the film, these celebration shows, or just a good old performance, keep a little wickedness in your heart in tribute this Halloween!

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Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly. Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system. 

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

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He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly.

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube. This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle. This is for Illmatic, this is for Nas. We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood." 

Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes. 

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The faintest hint of fall is in the air, but the summer of 2023's musical deluge continues unabated. Across genres, scenes and styles, the landscape continues to flourish.

We have Miley Cyrus's first song since Endless Summer Vacation — a vulnerable, proudly "unfinished" offering. On the opposite end of the vibe spectrum, Selena Gomez has thrown caution to the wind with the carefree "Single Soon."

And that's just the beginning — beloved acts from Burna Boy to BLACKPINK are back with fresh material. Before you dive into the weekend, add these songs to your playlist.

Miley Cyrus — "Used To Be Young"

On her first song since Endless Summer Vacation arrived in March, two-time GRAMMY nominee Cyrus avoids tidiness, and pursues honest reflection.

"The time has arrived to release a song that I could perfect forever. Although my work is done, this song will continue to write itself everyday," she said in a statement. "The fact it remains unfinished is a part of its beauty. That is my life at this moment ….. unfinished yet complete."

"Used to Be Young" belongs to the pantheon of "turning 30" jams; therein, Cyrus looks back on her misspent youth, and the attendant heat of the spotlight. "You say I used to be wild/ I say I used to be young," she sings. 

In the stark video, she gazes unflinchingly into the lens, without varnish or artifice.

Selena Gomez — "Single Soon"

Where Cyrus' new song bittersweetly gazes backward, Gomez's carbonated new jam "Single Soon" is focused on the promised reverie of tomorrow — sans boyfriend.

"Should I do it on the phone?/ Should I leave a little note/ In the pocket of his coat?" the two-time GRAMMY nominee wonders, sounding positively giddy about her unshackling from Mr. Wrong.

As the song unspools, Gomez gets ready for a wild night out; the song ends with the portentous question, "Well, who's next?" If you're ready to slough off your summer fling, "Single Soon" is for you.

Ariana Grande — Yours Truly: Tenth Anniversary

The two-time GRAMMY winner and 15-time nominee's acclaimed debut album, Yours Truly, arrived on Aug. 30, 2013; thus, it's time to ring in its tin anniversary.

Granted, these aren't "new songs," per se: rather, in a weeklong celebration, Grande is reintroducing audiences to Yours Truly.

Dive in, and you'll find "Live From London" versions of multiple songs. Plus — perhaps most enticingly — the sprawling re-release contains two new versions of "The Way," her hit collaboration with late ex Mac Miller.

Maluma — Don Juan

Papi Juancho is dead; long live Don Juan. "Fue un placer," Maluma wrote on Instagram last New Year's Eve. (It translates to "It was a pleasure.")

And with that, the Colombian rap-singing heavyweight ushered in a new character. He's now Don Juan — in a reference both to the fictional libertine and his birth name of Juan Luis Londoño Arias.

Now, Don Juan's out with his titular album — which he dubs a "mature" blending of the musics that got him going, like reggaeton, house, salsa, and hip-hop.

Burna Boy & Dave — "Cheat On Me"

Just over a year after his latest album, Love, Damini, Burna Boy is back with I Told Them… The Nigerian star offers another forward-thinking missive with his seventh album.

Featuring the likes of 21 Savage, J. Cole, and Wu-Tang Clan's GZA and RZA, I Told Them… is one highlight after the next — and "Cheat On Me" is one of them. For the advance single, the GRAMMY-winning Afro-fusion dynamo teamed up with London rapper Dave.

Therein, the pair expound on getting out of their own way. The chorus, powered by a sample from British-Ghanian singer/songwriter Kwabs, sums it all up: "I couldn't see/ I was cheating on, cheating on me." 

Blackpink — "The Girls"

BLACKPINK are a bona fide cross-cultural sensation, but they won't stop at the music: they're a game now.

A little over a year after their second studio album, Born Pink, the acclaimed South Korean girl group has released a mobile app, succinctly called "The Game." Therein — and above — players can watch the video for "The Girls," their first post-Born Pink jam.

Don't say Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé, and Lisa didn't warn you: "Stop sign, we're burning it down/ Better watch out, we coming in loud/ Bang, bang, just playing around/ Don't mess with the girls, with the girls, with the girls."

The Killers — "Your Side of Town"

The Killers' beloved debut album, Hot Fuss, turns 20 next year; as a ramp-up, here's "Your Side of Town," a new slice of electro-pop from the Vegas crew.

The sleek, aerodynamic, Auto-Tuned "Your Side of Town" is their first single since their acclaimed pair of albums, 2020's Imploding the Mirage and 2021's Pressure Machine.

Here, the five-time GRAMMY nominees take a Pet Shop Boys-like tack with the music; lyrically, they're still putting the "heart" in heartland rock.

"I'm hanging on your side of town/ I notice when you're not around," frontman Brandon Flowers sings on the chorus. "Can't keep my cool, I'm burning inside/ A broken heartbeat, barely alive."

But the Killers — like everyone on this list — remain very alive.

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Long before Ariana Grande was known as a global pop superstar, Broadway's Kristin Chenoweth was one of the first to recognize her inimitable talent.

"She was maybe seven or eight," Chenoweth recalled of meeting the singer for the first time during a 2019 stop at "Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen." At the time, the Broadway veteran was starring as the original Glinda in "Wicked," and a young Ariana had won an auction to meet her backstage at the Gershwin Theater. 

"Her mom and grandma brought her back and she sang a little bit of 'Popular,'" Chenoweth continued. "And I thought, 'Well you're pretty good.'"

Fast forward to more than 15 years later, and Grande herself is stepping into the role made famous by Chenoweth for the upcoming big screen adaptation of "Wicked" — a dream casting that has Ozians, munchkins and Arianators alike exclaiming, "We couldn't be happier!"

Directed by Jon M. Chu, the musical prequel to The Wizard of Oz will also star Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba opposite Grande and tell the enchanting story of Glinda and Elphie's unlikely friendship before they became the witches of Ozian lore. A massive undertaking translating beloved songs like "The Wizard and I," "What Is This Feeling?" and "Defying Gravity" to the silver screen, the film will be split in two parts; the first is set to hit theaters nationwide just in time for Thanksgiving next year. (As of press time, production on the two films is currently on pause amid the ongoing SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.)

The role of Glinda is a complete full-circle moment for Grande, a proudly self-described "theater kid" — one whose professional career actually started out on the Broadway stage.

On September 16, 2008, a then-14-year-old Ari made her Broadway debut as Charlotte in Jason Robert Brown's all-teen musical 13. The composer had won acclaim (and a Tony Award) for his previous works like Parade and The Last Five Years, but the show — which was centered around a group of 13-year-olds growing up, hitting puberty and surviving the horrors of middle school in small-town Indiana — only ran for a total of 105 performances before closing in January of the following year.

Even still, the show gave Grande a small taste of the spotlight, and in an unearthed interview with MTV News from the time, the future pop star adorably predicted exactly where the next 15 years would take her. "Whatever I end up doing with my career, I really hope that it's in this sort of business. Whether it's, you know, being on Broadway or recording albums, I really just hope I'm always singing and acting and dancing and, you know, making movies would work, too!" she manifested, citing everyone from Christina Aguilera and Mariah Carey to India.Arie and Imogen Heap as a few of her musical idols.

Though her time on the Broadway stage was short-lived, Grande quickly pivoted to television,   landing the role of Cat Valentine on the Nickelodeon sitcom Victorious, (which ran from 2010 to 2013), and its subsequent spin-off, Sam & Cat, alongside Jennette McMurdy. The pair of kiddie sitcoms gave the teenaged star a platform to both build a fanbase of loyal tweens and regularly show off her musical prowess — a harbinger of the international pop fame soon to come.

By late 2011, the burgeoning triple threat had signed with Republic Records (then known as Universal Republic) and released her debut single "Put Your Hearts Up." However, it was "Popular Song," her 2012 collaboration with MIKA, that landed Ariana her very first entry on the Billboard Hot 100. And what do you know? The campy duet interpolated none other than "Popular," the very same song from "Wicked" that she'd sung to Kristin Chenoweth all those years earlier.

Grande's debut album, Yours Truly, arrived in September 2013, with "Popular Song" joining the tracklist alongside hits like "The Way" featuring Mac Miller, "Baby I" and the Big Sean-assisted "Right There."

Over the course of her next two records, 2014's My Everything and 2016's Dangerous Woman, Ariana shot to the pop stratosphere. She landed seven more top 10 hits on the Hot 100 (including "Break Free," "Bang Bang," "Love Me Harder" and "Side to Side") and headlined two sold-out arena tours, joining the upper echelon of singers she'd spent her life admiring.

But even as she became a bonafide household name, the singer stayed connected to her theater roots. Months before Dangerous Woman arrived, Grande popped up as a special guest at one of Jason Robert Brown's cabaret-style concerts in Los Angeles, where she sang "The Lamest Place in the World" and "Brand New You" from 13 — the latter with Broadway luminary Shoshana Bean — as well as deep cut "Getting Out" from 2005's Wearing Other People's Clothes.

The two also got to reunite for the deluxe version of Dangerous Woman for the aptly titled "Jason's Song (Gave It All Away)." While the jazzy, piano-inflected bonus cut was an undeniable outlier to the album's more R&B-leaning sound, it still served as the project's third and final promotional single; Grande even performed it live on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in September 2016.

By the end of that year, Grande tapped into her musical theater roots again, but with an altogether different kind of role: Penny Pingleton in NBC's Hairspray Live! Alongside the likes of Dove Cameron, Jennifer Hudson, Garrett Clayton and Broadway royalty like Chenoweth, Harvey Fierstein and Martin Short, the superstar brought both a daffy charm and her powerhouse voice to the show's lovable sidekick and certified "checkerboard chick," belting out fan favorite numbers like "Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now," "Without Love" and "You Can't Stop the Beat."

"I started doing theater when I was younger, I have always been a huge theater nerd," Grande gushed from the Hairspray Live! press junket red carpet, Chenoweth by her side. "And a lot of people don't actually know that this is, like, my soul. It's like my heart." ("Her DNA!" Chenoweth proudly piped in.)

"So being able to do this production that I grew up singing every single day in the car… I worship this role," she added. "And also working with so many people who I have grown up worshiping is just, I can't say it enough times, it's so inspiring and so crazy and so beautiful and it'll never get old to me."

In between her next two albums — 2018's Sweetener and 2019's thank u, next, which both debuted atop the Billboard 200 — the megastar returned to NBC for "A Very Wicked Halloween," a special musical celebration of "Wicked"'s first 15 years on Broadway. For her supreme performance of Elphaba's Act 1 showstopper "The Wizard and I," Grande sported dazzling green lips as footage of Chenoweth and Idina Menzel played on a giant projector behind her.

Though most of thank u, next chronicled Grande's headline-making, whirlwind romance (and breakup) with comedian Pete Davidson, she once again found a way to inject a little Broadway on the album. But this time, the theater tribute became one of the biggest hits of her career: a little post-breakup bop known as "7 Rings."

Spinning the real-life tale of Ari treating her besties to a shopping spree at Tiffany & Co. in the wake of her split with Davidson, the trap-pop hit's ingenious melody came from quite the unexpected ditty — an interpolation of "My Favorite Things" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music.

Instead of waxing nostalgic over raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, though, the superstar cooed over, "Breakfast at Tiffany's and bottles of bubbles/ Girls with tattoos who like getting in trouble/ Lashes and diamonds, ATM machines/ Buy myself all of my favorite things" on the braggadocious track. (Interestingly, she also chose to sign 90 percent of the song's royalties over to the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization ahead of its release — a truly unheard-of split in the age of the modern music industry, particularly for a song that went on to spend eight weeks at the top of the Hot 100.)

The song became Grande's second consecutive hit to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (following "thank u, next"), breaking numerous streaming records in the process. And for the self-described "theater nerd," the fusion of pop and musical theater was not just a commercial success — it was also an authentic recalibration of her point of view as a recording artist.

"We started at home base — me," she said in a 2018 Billboard cover story honoring her as Woman of the Year. "And then we went in this place where I kind of played the game for a little bit, and did the big, big, big pop records. Then we slowly started incorporating my soul back into it — and that's where we've landed again with thank u, next."

Grande spent the majority of 2019 touring in support of Sweetener and thank u, next, including headlining Coachella and launching the Sweetener World Tour. The latter — which was later released as the live album k bye for now (swt live) and the Netflix concert documentary Ariana Grande: Excuse Me, I Love You — featured another Broadway homage, as the singer performed a coquettish cover of "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" from the 1938 Cole Porter musical "Leave It to Me!" for the show's final intermission.

The tour's third and final leg officially concluded on December 22, 2019, just months before the entire world shut down due to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Like many homebound artists, Grande used her sizable talents to make a difference during the crisis. And though everyone surely remembers her delectable take on "I Won't Say (I'm in Love)" for the Disney Family Singalong (playing both Meg and, yes, all five of the Muses at once), the singer also joined forces with Jason Robert Brown once again for a special one-night-only concert benefiting musicians affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For the occasion, Grande delivered a touching rendition of "Still Hurting" from The Last Five Years. In a statement following the virtual concert, Brown acknowledged just how remarkable her talent remains.

"I've known Ari since she was an astonishingly talented 14-year-old," he said. "We've gotten to make music together a couple of times throughout the years, and whenever it happens, I am struck by how comfortable our collaboration is and how relentlessly hard she works to get things exactly right. My text said, 'Do you know my song "Still Hurting"?' And her response was, 'Am I a person?' Ari was in."

By 2021, the world had begun to cautiously rouse itself from its pandemic slumber, and that November, Ariana and Erivo were announced as Glinda and Elphaba in the long-awaited adaptation of "Wicked" on the silver screen. (Even Erivo knew the scale of Grande's casting, sending her a bouquet of flowers with a note that read, "the part was made for you.")

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When filming reached the halfway point this past April, Grande shared a photo of herself standing under a rainbow on set alongside a gratitude-filled (and awestruck) caption. "I don't know what to do or say," she wrote, "to be here in Oz where everyday is a life changing one."

Even more than two decades after her fateful first meeting with Chenoweth, it seems Grande's heart remains in Oz — proving that her childhood wish really has taken her somewhere over the rainbow. 

"Savoring every millisecond left with my Galinda (although she'll be with me irrevocably, forever). she shows me so many new things every day," Grande added in her April post. "I hope this isn't all a dream because as present as i am attempting to be, it sure does feel like one… my fellow Ozians. my heart will be stuck here forever."

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