Beanie Feldstein Lands The Lead in 'Funny Girl' & Lea Michele Trends

Ever since news hit that casting was underway for the Broadway revival of Funny Girl, there’s been buzz around who’d be taking on the lead role of Fanny Brice. On Wednesday, news broke that the role would be filled by out queer gal Beanie Feldstein. 

This will not be Feldstein’s first time on Broadway — she made her debut in the recent revival of Hello, Dolly! Before that, she starred in Booksmart and Lady Bird. She’s also taken on the role of Monica Lewinsky in Ryan Murphy’s upcoming Impeachment: American Crime Story alongside Sarah Paulson, which dropped a teaser trailer today. Feldstein is having quite an incredible week.

Perhaps not having such a great day is Lea Michele, who was long expected to be taking on the Fanny Brice role. Who are we to say if she's upset or not by the news, but her name quickly began trending on Twitter after the casting broke.

While on Glee, Michele’s character starred in a revival of Funny Girl and it was reported that Ryan Murphy had obtained the rights for a Broadway revival with the intent of casting Michele as Brice. Michele herself even spoke about those rumors back in 2014. “We are definitely talking about it now. We have the rights. And, right now, we are talking to some potential directors – we have someone really amazing in mind,” she said.

While Michele hasn’t commented on the latest news, it hasn’t stopped Twitter from filling in the blanks. While the jokes are flowing freely, some point out that pitting two women against each other in this manner perpetuates an imaginary catfight between the two and contributes to the misogynistic notion of women needing to compete with each other for the world's entertainment. 

Now that the internet has got that out of their system, let's focus on celebrating Feldstein's accomplishment! We can't wait to see her on that stage!

The article contains contributions from Taylor Henderson, PRIDE's Digital Director.