#cinderella-ish

Touya:

His performance as Cinderella in his school play is played for laughs, but the thing I really appreciate is that the comedy comes from how ill-fitting his personality is for the character, not his gender. The episode was funny, sure, but it was also surprisingly progressive for a children's anime from the 90's (then again, so was the rest of the show haha). Also he's the only Cinderella who gets sent to the ball by a talking can of mackerel.

Saki:

Psychic goth girl who was cast as Cinderella in a school play. The play was so poorly cast overall that the entire script had to be rewritten, thus “Cinderella-ish” was born. Hanajima played a Cinderella dressed in all black, and when confronted by the fairy godmother, she simply wished for meat.

idk if this is what you meant by 'acting' as Cinderella but in-universe she got cast as Cinderella in the school play, and the characters ended up re-writing the entire play to work around her because she was too Goth and disinterested to play a classic Cinderella character.

She plays the best version of Cinderella. All she cared about was going to the ball for the barbecue. The episode she's in is a really good one as well.

Overall Saki is not a Cinderella character, but you did say we could submit them if they were Cinderella in an in-universe play, and that she was! In Season 2 Episode 23 "It's Cinderella-ish", her class puts on a production of Cinderella and she ends up getting cast as the titular role, which a lot of other characters think is crazy because she's this straight-faced, emotionally-repressed, exclusively-wears-black kinda girl. Also her best friend Tohru (the anime's protagonist) gets cast as an evil stepsister, and she's one of the sweetest people ever and has so much trouble being mean to Saki even fakely and vice versa. Of course, Saki has no problems being rude to the Prince Charming character in the play, played by Kyo, a guy who's sweet deep down (but only to Tohru and his adoptive father) but is other wise a hot head who's always getting into fights. So between Saki as Cinderella having a genuine love for her stepsister and a general animosity with the prince, in addition to the fact that when she goes to the ball, all she wants to do is eat, not mingle, she makes for a very interesting Cinderella.

so this shoujo series has a storyline where the class puts on a Cinderella play but instead of the heroine playing Cinderella, shenanigans happen that lead to the heroine's goth best friend, Saki Hanajima, aka Hana-chan, aka Demon Queen, playing the lead role. Hana-chan's Cinderella dresses in all black against the wishes of the play's director, does not give 2 shits about the prince, and is just a general menace to society. I know she's probably not gonna win but I just wanted to share her with all of you bc I love her and the Cinderella-ish arc is to this day some of the funniest shit I've seen in a manga