Lea Michele Receives Rave Reviews After ‘Funny Girl’ Debut: She’s What The Broadway Show ‘Needed’

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Leah Michele is wowing critics with her role as Fanny Brice in Broadway’s Funny girl. The Glee alum, 36, debuted as Fanny on September 6, where she received not one but seven standing ovations. Sadly, she was later dropped from the show due to COVID-19. She’s back stronger than ever, and the reviews are showing it. In fact, after the show struggled with poor reviews after its April debut with Beanie Feldstein be the leader, washington articles called Lea the “fun diva” the show “needed”.

“When Lea Michele launched a rocket-like rocket at ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade,’ she didn’t just take down the house. She knocks down the whole damn block, “theater critic Peter Marks Wrote for publication. He then doubled down on Lea’s smooth ability to bring the show’s biggest songs to life. “It was the performance in this 1964 backstage musical that a famous Broadway performer of the golden age wanted – no, needed – to drink. An irresistible cocktail mixed with fizz, rocket fuel and pure talent,” he said. Lea is definitely smiling right now.

More, Jesse Green of the New York Times called Leah “a great Fanny for suspense and distraction”. He added, “Both vulnerable and invulnerable, funny and spirited, she makes the show worth watching again.”

Both reviewers recall the difficulties Funny girl tried to find the right cast, and more importantly, the right host, with Jesse calling the process “a winding road”. Though Jesse notes that the show has spent decades developing a “long list of explosions” for Fanny, the most recent, as mentioned above, is Beanie Feldstein. She announced her departure from the show in July, two months earlier than the original end date. “Playing Fanny Brice on Broadway has been a lifelong dream of mine and doing so over the past few months has been a real pleasure and honor,” she wrote on Instagram at the time. “Once the producers decided to take the show in a different direction, I made the extremely difficult decision to leave earlier than anticipated.”

Negotiations with Lea’s team began at some point in the summer with a certain timeline; however, Glee and Leah Michele fans know this is a long time dream for Leah and her Glee character, Rachel Berry. Lea sings “Parade” for the first time from Funny girl above Glee in 2009 and was later invited to sing the song at the 2010 Tony Awards GleeIn season five, the screenwriters helped make Rachel’s dream come true when she moved to New York City to fight for the role of Fanny, whom she eventually landed. That same year, Lea said Glee creator Ryan Murphy acquired the rights to the show and they are in talks to make it a reality. “We had some really interesting first meetings with a really great director that we thought was going to be really great,” she revealed on See what happens live (through the Playbill). Sadly, the plan failed and a revival was finally started with Beanie as the lead.

@funnygirlbwyofficial

Fanny is home ❤️ @thedrewbarrymoreshow

♬ original sound – FUNNY GIRL

Luckily for Lea, life imitates art in the end and she’s taken the lead. Lea said, “If I could get on my knees on the curb,” Drew Barrymore on her talk show, recalling the moment she was told she was going to play Fanny on Broadway. “For me, I feel like the moment is right for me.”