How Lea Michele Manifested Funny Girl
From the sets of Glee to the stages of Broadway, Lea Michele has made a comeback in the Broadway production revival of Funny Girl. I attended a Tuesday night showing, and despite it being a weekday, the room was absolutely packed. I had personally decided to watch Michele perform because I was curious about her live vocals, which have been praised over the years. Proof can be found in her mini bio in the Funny Girl pamphlet handed to us, which cited her long history on Broadway since she was 6 years old playing Colette in Les Miserable to her list of awards, including two Golden Globes, an Emmy, and a SAG award.
Yet, she is probably most well-known for her role on Glee, which has earned itself a reputation for becoming a cult classic and a bit of a meme. Whether you've seen all six seasons, or you’ve sworn to never touch it (I wouldn’t blame you, it’s a deep rabbit hole), you can’t deny the influence it has had on pop culture. Glee was created by Ryan Murphy (you might know him from his newest hit show, Dahmer) and was on air from 2009 to 2015. The show cannot be taken seriously, otherwise defeating its satirical and black humor, which can arguably be considered offensive and absurd at times. Michele herself played protagonist and high schooler Rachel Berry who would do anything in her power to get the lead role in her club’s acapella performances, making her everyone’s least favorite protagonist. If there is anything to take away from the show, it is that it was essentially a six-year audition for Funny Girl. During the Season 1 midseason finale, Rachel performs a rendition of “Don’t Rain on my Parade”, a hit classic from Funny Girl, and is later cast as Fanny in a Broadway revival of Funny Girl on the show, as well as performing the song in real life at the Tony awards. All sounding a little too familiar? A self-fulfilling prophecy, it almost seems like her performance on Glee wrote itself into the future with Funny Girl.
Despite her impressive repertoire, a concern for myself, and those I attended with, was the long list of questionable dramas and controversies Michele has been involved with over the years. Claims against Michele were first raised in 2020 when her Glee costar, Samantha Ware, posted a tweet in response to a tweet Michele posted supporting Black Lives Matter, stating that Michele displayed “traumatic microaggressions” against her. Since then Michele has publicly apologized and claimed that her actions were not intentionally malicious. Despite her apology, Ware’s tweet only seemed to be the catalyst to set off an avalanche where other stars of Glee shared their personal negative experiences with Michele. Such concerns bring light to the issue of separating the art (in this case Funny Girl) from the artist (Michele). And if possible, should you?
Funny Girl was originally performed on Broadway back in 1964 and starred renowned singer and actress Barbara Streisand, who played the lead role of Fanny Brice. It is inspired by the real life story of actress and comedienne Fanny as she navigates her life on Broadway as well as her whirlwind love affair with Nicky Arnstein. It was then made into a film in 1968, directed by William Wyler, where Streisand reprised her role as Fanny. The Broadway production ran until 1967, was performed over one thousand times, earned eight Tony awards, and became one of the most beloved Broadway musicals ever created. Despite its iconicity, it wasn’t revived until March 2022 where it actually flopped…pretty bad. It was so poorly received that the newly casted star for the role of Fanny, Beanie Feldstein, who is well-known for her critically acclaimed films like Booksmart and Lady Bird, decided to step back in July 2022. Jane Lynch, who plays Fanny’s mother and is most well-known for her role as Sue Sylvester in Glee, also announced her exit in September.
Even before Michele’s surprise announcement as the new Fanny, it seemed that people always had expected her to play the role. As Feldstein says in a 2021 interview with Andy Cohen on SiriusXM's Radio Andy, “I didn't know that any of this was happening by the way. And all of a sudden people started explaining it to me, and I was like: Wait, what's happening?”, referring to Michele’s name trending on Twitter in August 2021, even though it was announced that Feldstein was the new Fanny, not Michele. Despite the public’s expectations of Michele being Fanny, most likely due to her time playing the character on Glee, Feldstein claimed that Michele has been very supportive of her on social media and that there have been “happy” interactions.
Funny enough, this is exactly the opposite of the social media drama that occurred with her former Glee stars, as mentioned before. With the announcement of Michelle’s casting as Fanny, not everyone was enthusiastic about her surprise arrival, notably Ware, who first confronted Michele in 2020. On Twitter, she posted her reaction to the casting, saying, “Yes, I’m online today. Yes, I see y’all. Yes, I care. Yes, I'm affected. Yes, I’m human. Yes, I’m Black. Yes, I was abused. Yes, my dreams were tainted. Yes, Broadway upholds whiteness. Yes, Hollywood does the same. Yes, silence is complicity. Yes, I’m loud. Yes, I’d do it again.”
However, it seemed that the general public had forgotten (or forgiven?) Michele’s previous controversies as ticket prices soared. Now viewers can buy tickets for a lowly price of $570 and all the way up to $2250. (Small tip if you’re an NYU student, NYU was selling tickets for as little as $100 with decent seating). Few shows, even Hamilton, have seen such a surge in popularity like this, and perhaps it does convey how talent really can outweigh all other aspects of character.
Even though I am part of the Rachel Berry hate club, I must give full credit to Michele for absolutely blowing the performance out of the water. Michelle has announced that her closing performance will be on September 3, 2023. It is up to everyone’s personal opinion and decision to decide whether or not to go out and support Funny Girl, but it’s really not as simple as separating the artist from their past. After all, there is an entire crew and cast besides Michele that have also put their life’s work into these productions and it wouldn’t be fair to discredit everything that they’ve done. And the most distinct problem with this situation is that Michele is Funny Girl. The two cannot be separated for there would be no success without her. For now, we can just hope that Michele continues to give Fanny the performance she deserves, while also making sure that she holds herself accountable for her actions, both her past and future selves.
