“We needed real connection,” Erivo says of their friendship, which bloomed just as Grande needed it most: “Tabloids have been trying to destroy me since I was 19.”

“I’d offer you a seat outside, but I’m scared that the coyote is going to come,” Ariana Grande says sweetly.

“Literally an hour ago he just walked right over and jumped over the fence. I was like, Excuse me?” Coyotes can mercilessly attack small dogs, and Grande has two, Toulouse and Myron. “I take Toulouse out to pee, and I’m holding him while he’s pissing in the air,” she tells me, then addresses the coyote, wherever it may roam: “Eat me first!”

We’re standing outside “the tree house,” which is what Grande calls her bungalow tucked away in the Hollywood Hills. Soon we’re joined by Cynthia Erivo, who stars with her in one of the fall’s most anticipated films, Wicked. When she arrives, Toulouse and Myron bound toward her as though they’re greeting an old friend. Inside, Grande starts to make us all tea, but Erivo politely declines, holding up a thermos and taking a sip of her green elixir. “I made my own little matcha,” she says.

By Logan Culwell-Block

Bad news for theatre fans looking forward to an Elphaba v. Ginda rematch at next year’s Academy Awards. According to a report in The Hollywood Reporter, Universal has asked that the upcoming movie musical’s stars, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, be eligible in different categories, Erivo in Leading Actress for her performance as Elphaba and Grande in Supporting Actress for her performance as Glinda. At the 2004 Tony Awards, original stage stars Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel famously both received nominations in the Leading category, with Menzel ending up with the award.

Studios participating in Academy Award (along with other film accolades) category designations is not unusual, and the same is true for the Tony Awards. While there are rules designating actors as leading or supporting based on how they’re billed in the opening night Playbill, productions frequently request designations that depart from those rules. Accepting those requests is the job of the Tony Awards Administration Committee, which almost always grants them. If they didn’t, shows like Hamilton, which has always billed its entire company alphabetically in one block, would not have had any eligible leading or supporting performances. More recently, Eddie Redmayne was deemed eligible for Leading Actor in a Musical for his performance in the current revival of Cabaret, as was Alan Cumming for his Tony-winning turn in the 1998 revival; despite the role’s originator, Joel Grey, winning in the Featured category in 1967. Whether or not these requests are made strategically to increase the likelihood of an actor winning a category is not something producers like to talk about on record.