"Great--another person has given their definitive opinion about a performer who hasn't even been officially cast in a show that won't even have a performance for months.
And seriously, you start your post by suggesting that Ambrose isn't Jewish enough for Fanny, then you suggest the two most Italian Catholic actresses I can think of for Fanny and Mrs. Brice? That makes so much sense."
Just a side note Laura Benanti is not actually Italian...here's a link to a very old interview on the subject:
It was mentioned earlier in the thread that a person's look is more relevant that their actual ethnicity, but for what it's worth, Lauren's last name on her birth certificate is D'Ambruoso.
"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Thanks, madbri. Your post reminds me of the fact that in Italy, "The Nanny" is called "La Tata," and through the aid of dubbing, Fran is magically turned into La Tata Francesca, an Italian immigrant from Ciociaria.
Another factoid, though even less germane: in Italy the Spanish feature "Jamon, Jamon" was called "Prosciutto, Prosciutto." In that case, at least, I think something important - and highly erotic - was lost in translation. Perhaps "Mortadella, Mortadella" would have been more apt.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body