Joni Mitchell graced Broadway to celebrate the opening night of Almost Famous at Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York City on Thursday.
The iconic musician — who showed up with a blue flat cap and her iconic brands — was seen posing with some of the cast, and Cameron Crow, the director of the beloved 2000 film. (Crowe co-wrote lyrics for the Broadway show.)
Mitchell told People that she enjoyed the show “even better than the movie,” which won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, after being based on a Rolling Stone teenage journalist named William Miller. (Miller is played by Casey Likes in the Broadway show and Patrick Fugit in the film).
“It’s an elixir that is really hard to contain that comes straight from the heart,” Crowe told a small crowd at a party about watching the show with Mitchell, per Variety.
Crowe also spoke to Variety prior to the show and praised the cast of Almost Famous, adding that having the film transform into a Broadway musical was his mother Alice Crowe’s “dream.”
“It’s like a cross between a family and a band because we’ve lived together and there’s no one person in the whole cast that really dominates another one,” he said. “I also think if you’re going to be in such a dream situation like this, let it be something that comes from the heart. We are here for all the right reasons. I walk away feeling like we’re going to be friends forever.”
Among the attendees at Thursday’s opening night were Clive Davis, Melissa Benoist, Tommy Tune, Amy Heckerling, Vanessa Williams, and Paul Rudd.
The visit to Almost Famous‘ opening night comes several weeks after it was announced that Mitchell will host her first concert in more than 20 years at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington at Brandi Carlisle’s show. Mitchell surprised the audience by singing on stage for the first time in years at the Newport Folk Festival back in July.
“I still can’t believe that happened,” Carlile told host Trevor Noah last month. “It was just a few months ago, and the fact that it was at Newport Folk Festival, which is such a monumental and historic place. [Mitchell] always has a plan. She knows what she wants to do even if she doesn’t say it.”
Earlier this week, the Almost Famous cast performed the “Tiny Dancer” bus scene on The Tonight Show.
“Almost Famous is the one thing that I’ve been involved with that had the most recurring fan talk,” Crowe said on the show. “People always want to talk about the feeling that the movie gave them, and I thought if we can get that feeling on the live stage in the theater, that’s almost like the 1973 world that the movie’s based on.”