Beanie Feldstein announces early departure from Funny Girl on Broadway amid negative reviews
The actress will conclude her time as Fanny Brice on July 31, after previously planning to depart alongside co-star Jane Lynch on September 25
Aux News Beanie Feldstein
Curtains on Beanie Feldstein’s arc as the eponymous mensch of Funny Girl’s Broadway revival will apparently come sooner than expected. The actress announced via her Instagram that she’ll end her time in the role of Fanny Brice on July 31, after previously planning to depart the production on September 25 alongside co-star Jane Lynch.
Feldstein shared the announcement in the form of a caption-less Notes-app statement. She disabled the comments section on her post.
“Playing Fanny Brice on Broadway has been a lifelong dream of mine, and doing so for the last few months has been a great joy and true honor. Once the production decided to take the show in a different direction, I made the extremely difficult decision to step away sooner than anticipated,” Feldstein wrote. “I will never forget this experience and from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank every single person who came to the august Wilson for the love and support you have shown me and our amazing cast and crew. The people I have had the great joy of bringing Funny Girl to life with every night, both on and off the stage, are all remarkably talented and exceptional humans and I hope you continue to join them on Henry Street after I depart on July 31st.”
When Funny Girl first opened on April 24, Feldstein had been set to stay in the role until the end of 2022. But after woefully mixed reviews (and some absolutely scathing ones), she changed her departure date to September 25— and then, to July 31.
Although no new casting confirmations have been made since Feldstein’s announcement, the production stated on their official Twitter account that “exciting” new casting updates would be shared Monday at 1 p.m. Theories have been flying that rumored wig-defiler Lea Michele may take on the role of Fanny, fulfilling one Rachel Berry’s birthright. But right now, only time can tell who will be the next greatest star.
82 Comments
Oh, good, I have to assume this is the beginning of regular Broadway coverage here. Looking forward to the next update!
Let’s see how they manage to fuck it up!
Completely expecting to read the word ‘Boardway’ a lot.
Yeah, maybe when The Walking Dead! The Musical opens at the Winter Garden Theater, Rob Bricken will start doing recaps.“Brains Over Rice” was the dance number of the evening!
LOL— do you see a review of Into the Woods here? AV’s “pop culture” bona fides don’t extend to 45th and Broadway. But sure, how about another Thor think piece.
Hahahahahaha. Good one.
Lea Michele may be a bitch, but that bitch can sing, which is a little known requirement for carrying a Broadway lead.
There you go. It’s just been announced officially: Lea Michele is stepping in as Fanny.
Oooooof…they were really pushing that, too.
Oh, she’s Jonah Hill’s sister
Maybe he can fill in.
Who the fuck are any of these people?
She ever coming back to What We Do in the Shadows?
I think about her character often, wondering her life as a hungry bat dorm girly.
I would hope she’s bcome a hungry bat grad student by now.
She really should have agreed to an episode each season.
She never left. You just couldn’t see her.
Maybe they will have Barbara Streisand step in and take over her roll?
or her muffin??????
gonna read some of these bad reviews.
wow these are bad reviews.
I read some of them and “reedy” appears to be the common descriptor amongst all of them.
This was from the Guardian’s review:“But this is a musical, one with some full-tilt belting, and her singing just isn’t up to par. Paper-thin, reedy in the higher registers and overly nasal throughout, Feldstein’s voice is noticeably untextured compared to the rest of the cast.”Not great for a leading actress in a musical.
Her voice seems to have been the problem and not the acting. It sounded like she had the comic chops, timing, and personality generally down, but that’s an odd choice for the production to be choosing someone with inadequate vocal skill to fill Barbra’s shoes. It does sound like her voice wasn’t “just okay”, but instead weak.
I saw her in it. Her performance would have fit in better as the understudy at a local tri-state high school production. It wasn’t even that she couldn’t fill Barbra’s shoes – no one can! – it was that she was totally incapable of handling the score with even a modicum of competency in the way that should be expected from the lead of the first ever revival of Funny Girl. The fact she never performed a single song live to promote the show tells you all you need to know.And the acting was a problem, too, because to cover for her vocal deficiencies she mugged and chewed the scenery like nothing I’ve ever seen in my many years of attending Broadway shows. It was frankly embarrassing and after the reviews and being totally shut out at the Tony’s I’m surprised she made it this far.
brutal review. you should do this professionally
thanks for that first-hand report!
Also not great for Merrily We Roll Along, the Linklater musical she’s in that’s being filmed over 20 years.
Thanks for sharing. Woulda been great if the post could’ve provided more detail on the scathing reviews but… sigh… I know better than to expect more from the AV Club at this point.
Those two comments are the best short story I’ve ever read.
More like Beanie, um,…Fell On Her Face!That’s all I’ve got.
And the Tony for “Least Inspired Comment” goes to…
I’m just glad I get to go into my “I’m….an AAAAActo-aaah!” speech.
“Once the production decided to take the show in a different direction”
A direction where they wanted the lead actress to be able to sing good.
Yeah she left after they told her she was fired.
Sing well.
thank you!
Why’d they cast her in the first place then?
ouch!
No links to the bad reviews?
No dig on Beanie Feldman. But I always thought she looked like if Jonah Hill (her actual brother) and Michael Cera (not her actual brother) had a baby it would look like her. Its kind of creepy when you think about it.
It would be funny if she was replaced by her Booksmart co-star Kaitlyn Dever, who turns out to have a fantastic singing voice
There doesn’t appear to be an awful lot that Kaitlyn Dever can’t do.
I wish I could do that at my job
Is she “leaving” of her own accord? Bad as it might be for her (and the audience), whatever happened to “the show must go on?” Shitty as the show may be, she might still have enough name recognition to sell tickets. If she is just quitting two months prior to her scheduled exit date, everyone from management to Jane Lynch should be pissed.
The only thing her castmates care about is how long the show will run. They’ll be thrilled that after terrible reviews, someone else is jumping in, hopefully with some good publicity, and hopefully will keep them employed.
I’m sure they are happy to be rid of her and the bad reviews.
Would be great if the article expounded upon this rather than offhandedly mentioning it in the headline.
I’m barely aware of what’s happening on Broadway but the story of Beanie & this play has been widely covered. To expound on something that’s already been discussed to death would only be appreciated to a handful of readers.
I suppose. At the same time an extra sentence with hyperlinks would provide more encompassing reporting, as well as follow up on facts/conjecture introduced in the subheading. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m not sure if she’s leaving of her own accord, being pushed out by the producers, or there’s some mutual agreement that it’s time for her to go, but ticket sales have started to drop pretty significantly: https://www.broadwayworld.com/grosses.cfmLast week alone the show was down nearly $330k in ticket sales compared to the week before and the theater was just below 75% capacity. The writing has been on the walls for months now and this is the producers trying to give the production legs to make it through to the fall with Lea Michele as the new star.
From reading elsewhere- the reviews were bad, she is not a particularly strong singer, ticket sales were dropping, and she’s being replaced by Lea Michele. My guess is that the show no longer wanted her and she may have wanted out too.Edit- after posting I see this is covered elsewhere… oh well.
The show must go on.
Just without her.
That’s showbiz.
no one is irreplaceable.
It’s been a whole thing. She’s missed an unusual number of performances, suggesting that there is something that is really none of our business going on with her. Replacing her is a way to add some consistency to the run.
What do you mean? The show is going on. That phrase doesn’t mean ‘keep working through hardship’
That’s exactly what that phrase means.
If you’re using the phrase in a situation where a show actually did in fact ‘go on’ then you’re using the wrong phrase. It’s main use is not to inspire individuals to keep going no matter what
Her performance is driving down ticket sales so the show must go on without her.
The Daily Beast published a pretty good deep dive into the whole drama, and it’s pretty even handed. One detail is that Feldstein’s understudy, Julie Benko, was posting on her social media when she would be performing and tickets sales would go up. Some people thought Benko had earned the right to replace Feldstein, but it’s clear the producers wanted a name that would draw tourists. It seems like a difficult situation, all around, and the producers were very much split about whether or not to cut Feldstein loose earlier or support her. And some feel like it would have been kinder to let her go earlier. https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-real-broadway-drama-over-lea-michele-replacing-beanie-feldstein-in-funny-girl
She doesn’t move her arms when she dances.
Hey, neither do I.
Better work on that. The Robot is coming back.
Rami Malek’s having a helluva career, isn’t he?
I don’t movie anyone’s arms when I dance.
I mean , if she were Irish dancing , that would make her a natural.
I obviously never knew her, but I’m fairly certain Fanny Brice wasn’t a mensch.
if you’re going to be pedantic, you should find out what mensch actually means. It doesn’t mean man. It means person.
Interesting, I’ve apparently been using it incorrectly all these years. I learned something new today, and you got to be right on the internet, so win/win!
True, but I’d rather be a schmendrick than a schlemiel.
I’m dying to know what kind of “different direction” they have planned for Funny Girl. Or is it just a direction that doesn’t include Johan Hill’s sister?
They want to go with a not-funny girl.
*that can sing
“Curtains on Beanie Feldstein’s arc as the eponymous mensch of Funny Girl’s Broadway revival will apparently come sooner than expected.”The play is called Funny Girl, not Fanny Brice, so no, Feldstein’s character is not the “eponymous mensch.”“But after woefully mixed reviews (and some absolutely scathing ones), she changed her departure date to September 25— and then, to July 31.”…how can reviews possibly be “woefully mixed”?
“I’m so sad that I enjoyed some parts of this play and hated others. Woe! Woooooe!”
Do they hire writers to write anymore?
This was dead in the water from the start when they decided to keep the same arraignments. I’m not a fan of musicals to begin with, and I’ve worked on many back in the day before I got some film production work and left that behind, but an actor’s musical work on stage in any musical isn’t what you’d necessarily call great singing. It’s all about finding the octaves and tones you can hit and fitting that into the production. Something the actor can do day in and day out without hurting their vocal cords.When I heard they were doing a Funny Girl revival with Beanie I assumed it was going be a complete rethink of the songs, to fit her vocal limitations. That’s quite common with revivals. Looking at videos they, uh, didn’t do that. Their composed as though Streisand is singing. Which obviously isn’t going to be matched.
This was dead in the water from the start when they decided to keep the same arraignments.I know her performance was bad, but I don’t think she deserves to be prosecuted.
Are they going to go with an extremely talented and promising hopeful? I can’t imagine an established name draw is going to brave the taint of those horrendous reviews and be the lipstick this pig so badly needs.
Poor woman was put in an impossible situation. Everyone knew she was miscast and it was true. She was terrible. She may be leaving “early” but not early enough. February would have been ideal.
The poor woman could have not accepted the role.