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‘Funny Girl,' and its impossible lead role, head to Boston

Advertisement Hannah Shankman is now portraying Fanny on the national tour of 'Funny Girl,' which arrives at the Citizens Opera House from February 4-16, presented by Broadway in Boston. The actress says she can relate to the immense pressure of carrying the iconic show and trying to step into Streisand's shoes. She remembers watching the movie with her sister many times as a kid, so the part has always been a 'bucket list dream.' 'It really is the role of a lifetime, and Barbra made it that. She allowed for the legacy,' Shankman said in a Zoom interview from a tour stop in Florida. For Fanny, Shankman said, 'You have to find someone who can play both young and play mature…someone who can be funny and wear their heart on their sleeve. But because Barbra did it so well, it felt daunting to try to find someone to live up to it.' Just ask Beanie Feldstein, who headlined the 2022 Broadway revival, before being abruptly shunted aside for 'Spring Awakening' and 'Glee' star Lea Michele. The casting switcheroo was high drama, and both actresses were targets for vicious online commentary. Slings and arrows aside, Fanny Brice is one of the most demanding in the musical theater canon. Fanny is onstage nearly the entire time, sings 16 songs. and has almost two dozen costume changes. The score, by composer Jule Style and lyricist Bob Merrill, is wide-ranging and boasts such classics as 'People,' 'If a Girl Isn't Pretty,' 'I'm the Greatest Star,' 'His Love Makes Me Beautiful,' and the epic 'Don't Rain on My Parade.' Many of the tunes were tailored specifically to Streisand's inimitable voice. Advertisement The story, which takes liberties with Brice's real life, follows her rise from modest means, as the daughter of a widowed saloon-keeper mother, to becoming a headliner in the 'Ziegfeld Follies.' Despite her mother's hopes to find her a husband, the quick-witted Fanny is determined to become a stage star and pushes past obstacles and opposition to achieve her dream. Along the way, she falls in love with inveterate gambler and con man Nick Arnstein, and their tumultuous love affair (and later marriage) provides the backbone for most of the second act. Shankman had some experience with the role before this tour. She played Fanny in a regional production of 'Funny Girl' in Missouri in 2016 for about a dozen performances. 'It was just a little taste, and I was like, 'Wow, what I wouldn't give to have more time to flesh this out, discover new things, really dig my teeth in,'' Shankman said. When the national tour launched in 2023, Shankman was the Fanny Brice standby for a year before taking over the role full-time in September. She said that director Michael Mayer and the creative team encouraged her to make the character her own and 'to bring my own tools and skills and humor to the table.' Fanny's upbringing is familiar terrain for Shankman. She, too, grew up in a Jewish family in New York and had an affinity for the stage from a young age. 'My parents are both actors, so I was around the theater from the time I was about 2. My mom went into labor with me while my dad was doing a show. It's always been in me, just like it's always been in Fanny.' Advertisement She also relates to the character's 'chutzpah,' her feisty and headstrong personality and her seemingly improbable dreams of stardom. 'She uses humor as a way to connect with people. She goes after what she wants and doesn't take no for an answer or stop believing in herself,' Shankman says. 'That's kind of been my trajectory in life, too. Fanny was told she couldn't be in the theater because of the way she looked, and when I auditioned for college programs for musical theater, I got rejected from all of them.' When producers first approached director Michael Mayer ('Spring Awakening,' 'A Beautiful Noise') about helming 'Funny Girl,' he was intrigued. His grandparents were big Fanny Brice fans, and he would listen to her recordings with them. As an 8-year-old on vacation with his family in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, they went to see 'Funny Girl' on a rainy day. 'I remember my mother was transfixed by Barbra Streisand,' he says via Zoom. 'Fanny was really a force to be reckoned with, and Jule Styne and Bob Merrill really captured that drive brilliantly with these songs.' Hannah Shankman and Stephen Mark Lukas (Nick) in "Funny Girl." Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade Still, Mayer felt Isobel Lennart's original book needed some reshaping, though he adds there was much to admire, too. He suggested to producers that they hire theater icon Harvey Fierstein ('Kinky Boots,' 'La Cage aux Folles') to freshen up the second act and to sharpen the focus on Fanny's tumultuous marriage to Nick Arnstein. 'We have to hear more from Nick,' Mayer said. 'Otherwise, it basically becomes a Fanny Brice concert.' Advertisement Mayer and Fierstein went back into the 'Funny Girl' archives and added in two songs for Nick that had been discarded from the original—'You're a Funny Girl,' which comes when Fanny secretly fronts the capital for Nick to become a partner at a talent agency, and 'Temporary Arrangement,' when he enters into some bad business deals with Fanny's money. Fierstein rejiggered and restructured the script in the second act and added a comic monologue for the pioneering Fanny. 'I thought there were lots of things that we could adjust and make it feel slightly more contemporary,' Mayer said. 'We've worked very hard to transcend some of the old-fashioned clunkiness that is baked into a lot of musicals from the 1960s.' Grammy award winning singer-songwriter Melissa Manchester ('Midnight Blue,' 'Don't Cry Out Loud') plays Mrs. Brice in the tour. As a young girl growing up in the Bronx, Manchester saw the original production with Streisand. Later, at the height of Manchester's pop career in the 1980s, she says Styne reached out to see if she'd be interested in doing 'Funny Girl,' but she turned it down. 'At that point, Streisand's aura was still too bright,' she said. But when this current tour was announced, she went after the role of Fanny's tough-yet-supportive mother Mrs. Brice. 'I insisted to my manager that I at least get an audition,' she said. 'This show has always been part of the musical landscape of my life.' Manchester says it's important not to perform the show through contemporary eyes. In the early 1900s, 'there was no language for codependency, gambling addiction or psychology. Everybody was just stumbling in the dark, struggling to get by and hoping for the best.' Advertisement In the second act, the conflict with Nick takes center stage, with their dynamic shifting as his gambling spirals out of control and Fanny finds fame and fortune. 'I think that felt very emasculating for Nick, and it really took a toll on their relationship,' Shankman says. 'They go from this lustful and passionate romance, where they put each other on pedestals, to a tumultuous disconnect.' Ultimately, Fanny 'is someone who just wants to be loved and give love, and she sees the best in people,' Shankman says. 'It may be a flaw, but she loves herself regardless of her flaws. I think that's a lesson that takes her time to learn and it's a great reminder for all of us.' FUNNY GIRL Presented by Broadway in Boston. At: The Citizens Opera House, February 4-16. Tickets: from $40.