Lea Michele treated the final-night audience of Broadway’s Funny Girl to an extra song Sunday, performing “My Man,” popularized by Fanny Brice in 1921 but not included in the musical’s original score. Michele performed the song – omitting, as did Barbra Streisand in the 1968 film version, the infamous “he beats me too” introductory verse
Funny Girl
Lea Michele, the star of Funny Girl, ends her stay today in the Broadway revival. She noted the milestone with an Instagram post that touted thhe show’s recoupment of its $16.5 million capitalization. “For the past year, I’ve had the honor and privilege of playing the iconic Fanny Brice in Funny Girl on the August Wilson Stage,”
Julie Benko, who has built a devoted following as the Funny Girl understudy and alternate Fanny Brice, will originate her first Broadway role this fall in the new musical Harmony by by Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman. Benko will play the role of Ruth, producers Ken Davenport, Sandi Moran and Garry Kief announced today. The
Lea Michele will miss upcoming performances of Funny Girl because of an unspecified “scary health issue” affecting her 2-year-old son, Ever Leo Reich. The news was announced by the former Glee star on her Instagram account, and show producers confirmed there as well. “I’m so sorry but unfortunately I will be out of @FunnyGirlBwy today,”
The revival of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, with Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford in previews at the Lunt-Fontanne, is firmly in Broadway’s $1 million club, with receipts for the week ending March 5 at a bloody good $1,526,254. And that’s just for six performances. The Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler musical filled every
Broadway box office took the expected drop last week, declining nearly 30% (to $37,394,931) from the previous week’s holiday-pumped $52M figure. Attendance for the 32 shows was down about 12% (to 275,834), but remained at a solid 92% of total capacity. The reason for the decline, of course, is the previous week’s New Years week
Funny Girl broke a house record with more than $2 million in receipts at the August Wilson Theatre, A Beautiful Noise continued its $1 million-plus weekly take, and The Piano Lesson topped the list of highest-grossing non-musical productions with $914,752, each contributing to Broadway’s $37M box office tally for the week ending Dec. 18. Heading
Even with one fewer show on the Broadway boards, and overall attendance at the 33 productions down a smidge from the previous week, Broadway box office was up 22% during Thanksgiving week, scoring a plump $37,475,773 due to plumper holiday ticket prices. Not coincidentally, average ticket price was up 22% from the previous week, hitting
Broadway held fairly steady at the box office last week, with recent arrivals Leopoldstadt and The Piano Lesson leading the pack of fall newcomers with grosses of $758,988 and $704,051, respectively. In all, Broadway’s 25 current shows took in $25,208,583 for the week ending Oct. 2, a slight 4% slip from the previous week, possibly
Well, that’s that. After all the controversies and badly handled original castings and headlines and backstage bruisings and firings or resignations or whatever they were, Funny Girl is, as so many suspected all along, the musical that Lea Michele was born to lead. Broadway’s new Fanny Brice is, to put is simply and without exaggeration,
The Piano Lesson led the pack of Broadway’s recent arrivals at the box office last week, with the August Wilson revival starring Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington and Danielle Brooks grossing $795,306 for its first seven performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Coming in a close second, in terms of gross receipts, was Leopoldstadt,
A slate of four new productions and renewed interest in a couple of old ones pushed Broadway box office up by 20% last week, with total receipts for the 24 shows reaching $24,954,517 and attendance climbing 14% to 201,321 for the week ending September 18. Among the newcomers: Death of a Salesman, 1776, Cost of
Even with a Covid-shortened performance schedule, Lea Michele’s star turn in Funny Girl was serious business last week, with box office for the musical revival more than doubling from the previous week. For the week ending September 11 — Michele’s first week as Fanny Brice — Funny Girl grossed $1,639,212, a dramatic upturn from the
Broadway gave Billy Crystal a fine send-off last week, with the star’s Mr. Saturday Night musical grossing more than $1 million during its final week of performances. That number – $1,014,614, to be precise – is a big jump over the show’s weekly box office takes in recent months. About 98% of seats at the
Broadway box office held steady last week, with most productions keeping pace, for better or worse, with their recent trends. In all, the 25 shows took in a total $29,531,601 for the week ending July 24, up about 2% from the previous week. Total attendance was 224,884, not much difference from the previous week. Some
Box office for most Broadway shows – Funny Girl and Mr. Saturday Night included – was up a bit last week, as the hits – Into The Woods and MJ included – stayed strong and even some struggling shows saw a slight uptick in attendance. Although total Broadway box office was down 4% from the
News of Lea Michele’s upcoming arrival in Broadway’s Funny Girl will certainly hand the musical a revival in advance ticket sales, welcome news for producers who saw last week’s box office continue its recent downward pivot. The musical, currently starring Beanie Feldstein (who has missed some recent performances) played to houses only 65% full during
Booksmart star Beanie Feldstein has been set to star as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, which will serve as the first Broadway revival of the iconic musical that premiered in 1964 with Barbra Streisand in the role. It is scheduled to begin performances in spring 2022 at a Broadway theatre to be announced. The new