Twitter Turned Upside Down After Lea Michele Was Cast as the Lead in 'Funny Girl'
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It's been an exciting past 24 hours for theater kids, born-again Gleeks, Twitter critics, and—last but certainly not least—Lea Michele.
Here's what you missed: Producers for the Broadway production of Funny Girl announced yesterday that Lea Michele will take over the lead role of Fanny Brice from Beanie Feldstein, who unceremoniously announced just hours before that she'd be departing the show months before her run was set to end.
"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," Feldstein wrote in a telling Instagram post. "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 had long been considered a front-runner for the musical since she played Glee's resident diva, Rachel Berry, a devout Funny Girl disciple who, in a twist of meta luck, had also snagged the lead in the fictional Broadway revival in the beloved dramedy. In real life, Michele waded into troubled waters in 2020 when allegations of her toxic and microaggresive behavior on the Glee set emerged from former costars. (Notably, Jane Lynch, who played Sue Sylvester opposite Michele on Glee and now plays Rose Brice in the current Funny Girl revival, is ending her run early, too, just days before Michele's takeover.)
"A dream come true is an understatement," Michele wrote on Instagram following the announcement of her casting. "I'm so incredibly honored to join this amazing cast and production and return to the stage playing Fanny Brice on Broadway."
Naturally, Twitter has erupted into flames over the Broadway drama. Ahead, the Internet defends Feldstein, theorizes on Michele's backstage behavior, and continues to speculate over the Glee star's literacy abilities.
funny girl’s producers after deciding to go with lea michele pic.twitter.com/mHMSh7ihgp
— m (@bigIttIeIies) July 11, 2022
Lea Michele showing up to the first funny girl rehearsal pic.twitter.com/g8N6K2HSzr
— david (@thedaviddoes) July 11, 2022
is anyone going to talk about the parallel between jane lynch leaving funny girl right before lea joins the cast and sue sylvester walking out of rachel’s opening night pic.twitter.com/oTjSzQ20Cp
— Believe :)(: (@kgleeb) July 11, 2022
lea michele at 1 pm tomorrow pic.twitter.com/q1TXlh2xtK
— abby (@darrencwiss) July 11, 2022
jane lynch when lea michele shows up to her first funny girl rehearsal pic.twitter.com/A6DVZID1Ix
— leyla 🍒 | ST SPOILERS (@leylanocontext) July 11, 2022
Lea Michele texting the director of Funny Girl pic.twitter.com/UQg4y3kLvB
— m. knowles 🚀 (@maloo5hka) July 11, 2022
NOT LEA MICHELE ACTUALLY GETTING THE FUNNY GIRL PART- pic.twitter.com/aQSKLW8Aup
— q (@stokerrcohen) July 11, 2022
I’m so obsessed with the fact that the Funny Girl revival was both a mess on Glee AND in real life
— virginia 🦋 (@gikneesbees) July 11, 2022
and in the end glee was just lea michele’s six season long audition for funny girl
— adelaide (@phantcmthread) July 11, 2022
lea michele made a deal with the devil so she could be in funny girl on broadway… she’s like ariel but instead of trading her voice she traded the ability to read
— freya (@freyabwg) July 11, 2022
"I wanted to be the first to tell you that Lea Michele is replacing Beanie Feldstein in Funny Girl on Broadway" pic.twitter.com/3nuUlO8UZG
— rebekah entralgo fernández (@rebekahentralgo) July 11, 2022
In 25 years the children will be recounting the Beanie feldstein lea michele funny girl casting scandal on the APUSH DBQ
— michelle (in her “Joanne” era) (see cowboy hat) (@itsbozzibaby) July 11, 2022
lea michele forcing jonathan groff to read her funny girl lines to her rn pic.twitter.com/Hy6HrISK24
— rio (@rioc123) July 11, 2022
for those of you outside the glee world, the lea michele replacing beanie is our infinity war but specifically when thanos looks up and says you should have gone for the head
— sifu hotman (@cjfeisty) July 11, 2022
Lea Michele after arriving on set of Broadway’s ‘Funny Girl’ to bully everyone on set like did on Glee pic.twitter.com/lO0lU3QHxu
— Steven (@StevenNYPhoto) July 11, 2022
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