Lea Michele recently debuted as “Funny Girl’s” Fanny Brice and she’s already bringing in the big bucks.
With Michele officially in Fanny Brice’s shoes as of last Tuesday, the August Wilson Theatre’s revival of “Funny Girl” grossed more than $1.6 million in the “Glee” alum’s opening weekend, according to the Broadway League. It’s the biggest weekend since the revival opened in April with Beanie Feldstein in the title role.
Michele debuted to multiple standing ovations and support from “Glee” co-creator Ryan Murphy, “Glee” co-star Jonathan Groff and other television friends.
The weekend box office revenue shot up from the previous weekend’s gross of $659,874.
However, on Saturday, Michele revealed that she had “officially tested positive” for COVID-19 and will be out of commission for 10 days. Like Feldstein, Michele’s “Funny Girl” run will take a brief pause as she recovers from COVID.
“Thankfully staying home today and catching this early protected so many members of our company from being exposed,” Michele said in a statement shared on her Instagram Story.
The “Scream Queens” actor brought her Instagram followers along on her COVID care journey, sharing pics of soup, juice and her latest TV binge (Hulu’s “Tell Me Lies”) to her Instagram story.
Michele was announced to take on the role of Fanny Brice — “a dream come true” — in July. Feldstein’s debut show April 24 brought in $1.1 million and averaged $1.3 million in the “Booksmart” actor’s early weeks, Deadline reported. Feldstein’s final “Funny Girl” show was on July 31, nearly two months before her initially announced exit date of Sept. 25.
“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 said in a statement in July.
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(Los Angeles Times staff writer Christi Carras contributed to this report.)
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