Lea Michele will replace Beanie Feldstein as Fanny Brice in Broadway’s “Funny Girl,” the production announced today. Tovah Feldshuh will also join the production as Mrs. Brice in September.
“Emmy Award-nominee LEA MICHELE and Tony Award-nominee TOVAH FELDSHUH join #FUNNYGIRL beginning September 6!” the production tweeted.
The news comes the day after Feldstein announced that she would be leaving the Broadway revival at the end of this month after the production went in a “different direction.”
“Playing Fanny Brice on Broadway has been a lifelong dream of mine,” Feldstein wrote in her Instagram caption, “and doing so for the last few months has been a great joy and true honor. Once the production decided to take the show in a different direction, I made the extremely difficult decision to step away sooner than anticipated.”
Feldstein announced that she will leave the show July 31, shortening Feldstein’s anticipated performance as Fanny after producers announced last month that Feldstein would leave the show in September. In June, the “How to Build a Girl” actress missed several shows due to a positive COVID-19 diagnosis and returned to the stage in mid-June.
Michele will join Jane Lynch, who plays Fanny’s mother, Ramin Karimloo, who plays Nick Arnstein and Jared Grime, who plays Eddie Ryan. Producers also announced that Lynch would be leaving the production in September.
The revival, which marks “Funny Girl’s” first on Broadway since the original 1964 production, opened at the August Wilson Theater in late April.
The production earned a single nod at the Tony Awards in June, when Jared Grimes was nominated for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, despite an ultimate loss to “Company’s” Matt Doyle.
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Reference-www.thewrap.com
