Funny Girl isn't just getting a pair of new high-profile stars September 6. Playbill has confirmed the Broadway revival will also get a new song (production representatives are calling it an "interlude") when Lea Michele and Tovah Feldshuh join the company next week, Fred Fisher and Billy Rose's "I’d Rather Be Blue Over You." The song was performed by the real Fanny Brice in the 1928 movie musical My Man and was sung by Barbra Streisand in the 1968 film adaptation of Funny Girl, but its inclusion in the current Broadway revival will be the first time the song has appeared in a stage production of the biomusical.
Michele and Feldshuh are set to take over as Fanny Brice and Mrs. Brice, respectively, beginning September 6 at the August Wilson Theatre. Michele last appeared on Broadway in Spring Awakening, with earlier credits including creating the role of The Little Girl in Ragtime and appearing in Les Misérables and the 2004 revival of Fiddler on the Roof. Four-time Tony nominee Feldshuh was last seen on Broadway in Pippin, with previous credits including Irena's Vow, Golda's Balcony, Lend Me a Tenor, and Yentl—the latter of which shares source material with the 1983 Streisand movie musical but is otherwise unrelated.
Funny Girl, which premiered on Broadway in 1964, features a score by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill and a book by Isobel Lennart, newly adapted by Tony winner Harvey Fierstein for this revival. The original production propelled a young Streisand to international fame; she would reprise her stage performance in the 1968 film adaptation, winning an Academy Award and a Golden Globe in the process. The biomusical tracks real-life singer and comic Brice from her humble beginnings in New York to fame and fortune onstage in the Ziegfeld Follies and as a radio and screen performer.
The production is directed by Michael Mayer with choreography by Ellenore Scott, tap choreography by Ayodele Casel, music supervision and direction by Michael Rafter, scenic design by David Zinn, costume design by Susan Hilferty, lighting design by Kevin Adams, sound design by Brian Ronan, and hair design by Campbell Young Associates. Casting is by Jim Carnahan and Jason Thinger. The production also includes orchestrations by Chris Walker; dance, vocal, and incidental music arrangements by Alan Williams; additional arrangements by Carmel Dean and David Dabbon; music coordination by Seymour Red Press and Kimberlee Wertz; and vocal supervision by Liz Caplan.
Tovah Feldshuh in rehearsal for Funny Girl
Lea Michele, Michael Mayer, and Johanna McKeon in rehearsal for Funny Girl
Lea Michele in rehearsal for Funny Girl
Lea Michele and Tovah Feldshuh in rehearsal for Funny Girl
