Lea Michele

The Glee alum will succeed Beanie Feldstein in the Broadway revival in September.

Current Funny Girl standby Julie Benko will take over the role in the interim period between Feldstein’s July 31 departure and Michele’s September 6 start date. Having one’s entire Broadway run overshadowed by the mere specter of another actor, only for that actor to come in and snag the role, can’t feel good. Rumblings that Michele might join the production first began when Feldstein’s initial departure was announced, but her path to the Funny Girl stage began long before that.

Lea Michele will replace Beanie Feldstein as the lead of Broadway's revival of the extremely Jewish musical “Funny Girl.”

The revival of “Funny Girl,” the first on Broadway since Streisand originated the role, debuted in April amid sky-high expectations for Feldstein as the headliner. “Once the production decided to take the show in a different direction, I made the extremely difficult decision to step away sooner than anticipated.” Michele, who learned about her Sephardic Jewish ancestry on a 2016 reality show, will be joined in the cast by Feldshuh, who will be another “Glee” star, Jane Lynch, in the role of Fanny’s mother. In her exit announcement, she suggested that she was leaving early because the revival would be undergoing major changes. Her character on “Glee,” Rachel Berry, even starred in the show-within-a-show’s Broadway revival of “Funny Girl.” (Michele performed the show’s signature number, “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” on live “Glee” tours.) She sang a song from the show in a 2011 tribute to original star Barbra Streisand, whom Michele has said she considers her role model.

A cross-section of Broadway aficionados, “Glee” fans, and people who generally gravitate toward drama stood by for news at 1 p.m. sharp on Monday—not about ...

“I believe you told everyone that, if you had the opportunity, you would ‘s— in my wig!’ amongst other traumatic microaggressions that made me question a career in Hollywood.” It’s not every day that the internet breathlessly clamors for musical-theater announcements, but this was a special case: the latest development in a lengthy saga surrounding the long-awaited return of Funny Girl and which actress would—could possibly—helm it in the long shadow of Barbra Streisand, who originated the role in the 1960s. With that said, was she unpleasant to work with? In season 1, episode 13 of Glee in 2009, Michele belted out “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” Funny Girl’s biggest, schmaltziest show tune, establishing herself as a logical choice if Funny Girl were ever revived. In 2015, Glee creator Ryan Murphy had obtained the rights to revive Funny Girl on Broadway, providing a vehicle for Michele. On Watch What Happens Live in 2017, Michele told Andy Cohen: “I just talked to Ryan Murphy the other night. But if I’m going to go back [to Broadway musicals after starring in Spring Awakening], that’s what I’d really like to do.” Alas, Broadway World subsequently reported that Murphy no longer held the rights to the show.

Hours after Beanie Feldstein announced she was stepping away from the role of Fanny Brice in Broadway's Funny Girl, the production announced that Lea ...

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Lea Michele will finally play Fanny Brice in 'Funny Girl' on Broadway, a role she's been publicly campaigning for for over a decade. As announced on Monday, ...

Now, just a handful of months later, Feldstein announced on Sunday that she would be leaving the Funny Girl revival ahead of schedule, writing on Jane Lynch, who famously played Coach Sue Sylvester on Glee opposite Michele for six seasons, also announced that she would be leaving the show the day before Michele will make her debut on September 6, and not at the end of the month as had previously been announced. When it was first announced that Feldstein would be playing Fanny Brice on Broadway, Lea Michele trended on Twitter as people imagined her jealousy at losing out on the role. Lea Michele has been campaigning to star in Funny Girl for years, ever since she sang “Don’t Rain on My Parade” in the season-one mid-season finale of Glee in 2009.

NEW YORK (AP) — Lea Michele has been tapped to step in and lead the Broadway revival of the beleaguered “Funny Girl” this fall, an announcement made just ...