Lea Michele is now playing the role of Fanny Brice on Broadway. In July, however, producers announced that Feldstein would be leaving the show several months early. But when the first Funny Girl Broadway revival in 58 years opened this spring, it was headlined by Booksmart star Beanie Feldstein. Lea Michele, the Broadway actress from 2006’s Spring Awakening who became a household name starring on the musical comedy TV show Glee, spent years publicly campaigning for the part. The casting requirements don’t just stop with “once-in-a-generation talent.” In a Broadway landscape increasingly reliant on celebrity casting, the actress playing Fanny Brice has to have the kind of cachet that pushes people to buy tickets. “She is a once-in-a-generation talent, and must have excellent comedic timing.” “The woman who will play Fanny Brice must have an unforgettably thrilling voice with a big range (E below middle C to a high F Mezzo with a high mix or belt) and great comic skill, masking deep insecurity and pain,” went the casting notice for a planned Broadway revival of Funny Girl that never reached stages. In real life, Brice was one of the most celebrated performers of her era, and when her life became the basis for a musical in 1964, the part made an icon out of a young Barbra Streisand. The Funny Girl controversy revolves around the role of Fanny Brice.
Beanie Feldstein was in and then she was out! Lea Michele was out and now she’s in!
Here we have a tale of bitterness and intrigue, of years-long grudges and petty jealousies, of rumor and heartbreak and dreams deferred. The most fascinating, low-stakes, deliciously not-at-all-connected-to-the-decline-of-American-democracy news story of the summer is the casting drama in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl, now playing in New York. When you want to be entertained, go to the theater - or at least theater Twitter.
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