Lea Michele to Star as Fanny Brice in FUNNY GIRL Starting 9/6; Beanie Feldstein Departing 7/31 — Page 4

BoringBoredBoard40 said: "oh please she is an adult she could have said no or withdrawn at any point in the process"

So what you're saying is the producers hold NO responsibility for this? They came to her with a job and I'm sure countless praise. THEY were the ones with money on the line and THEY should have been the ones to pull out. It's THEIR contract, Beanie was just fulfilling contractual obligations. SHE should have been the one to walk? Knowing that the entire cast (at the time) was getting paid off of HER back? You wanted her to take responsibility for that to?

Sutton Ross said: "Schmergo2 said: "I have a bit of a theory: what if when she said they were "taking the show in another direction," perhaps that meant they were planning on changing things up so that, in the 2 months leading up to Beanie's planned departure date, Julie was going to be bumped up to an official alternate? That's one of the few changes I could easily see a Broadway show making mid-run that might make Beanie upset. This is absolutely just a wild theory, though."

Not wild at all, good idea. However, I don't think she would care about Julie and would have welcomed only doing the role 6 times a week. My theory is this: She found out they were going to announce who the new Fanny was going to be tomorrow and felt ambushed. Like, why see her when you can see a much better Fanny at the end of September! Do you know what I mean?

It just seems odd to me they would announce the new Fanny? It always struck me odd with the leaks about Lea. How would that help the show? I'm wondering if when they saw their receipts last week, Beanie calling in sick again, and how well Ephie performed, they figured they had what they needed to move ahead. Beanie's name wasn't bringing in the audiences anymore, so no big loss. Take your chances with the new (and better) blood.

Looking at Lea's website, she only has 3 concert dates in August, so I imagine she could easily work around that...?

Is there any exact tally of the number of performances Bean-o missed?

I'm pretty sure the new direction has something entirely to do with economics, as several of you have said. The direction is to make the show better. I'm not slamming Beanie, because I didn't see her performance. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Julie Benko was playing Fanny the day I went to see the show. Julie was phenomenal and gave a bravura performance. But the bad word of mouth about Beanie and the show just being so-so wasn't going to attract a lot of people to the box office. Any investor trying to recoup as much money as possible really has no loyalty to any one individual outside of a contract, so of course, any effort to make the show successful will focus on removing the "problems." (I thought Jane Lynch was miscast, but I believe she has greater recognition than Beanie). I heard that Beanie's father and brother were silent producers of the show, which is why she didn't have to audition, and I don't know if that's true, but I'm sure even they want to see some return on their investment. It's said that Beanie has become a casualty in what appears to be a debacle, but people have survived greater challenges, and we did all receive the gift that is Julie Benko.

Has nobody thought of Rachel Bloom to take on the role? I would KILL to see her

TaffyDavenport said: "I just wanna know who I’ll be seeing on August 28th."



Honey Boo Boo

Aw, I love Rachel Bloom, she is absurdly talented and so hilarious but she doesn't have a voice for Broadway.

Bill Snibson said: "Kinda laughable how the PR Dept tried to sneak this under the radar on a Sunday night. Jeeez."

I saw the post on the FunnyGirlBwy unofficial site, then saw Beanie's IG. She took the wind out of their sales by making her announcement first.

Do an astrology reading on them. I’m surprised you didn’t already to get ALL your answers to your questions.

I feel like all this “announcement” stuff means it’s has to be someone significant, no? I mean sure Benko is great but if the advance is that bad they def need to get a recognizable name.

So if she was fired, her first full week back after Covid the show dropped a stunning $326+k. And okay July 4 week, okay but next week 7 of the 8 performances landed on TDF. First time. Isn’t it possible that her fan base is finite? Why didn’t they rush in and buy up July when her departure was announced? Instead, the revival’s advance seemed to be drying up. Fired or quit, it was over.