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“Lea Michele tore”: Here’s what folks are saying about the star’s ‘Funny Girl’ debut

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

For Lea Michele, life’s candy and the sun’s a ball of butter now that’s she’s made her debut in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl.

Stepping into Barbra Streisand’s shoes to play Fanny Brice—a role she’s seemingly been preparing for most of her professional career—Michele reportedly received six standing ovations throughout her premiere performance at The August Wilson Theatre.

The first of those came as soon as she sauntered onto stage, before she could even utter the musical’s iconic opening line: “Hello, gorgeous!”

Related: 5 celebrities who totally won’t be at Lea Michele’s ‘Funny Girl’ premiere

This moment’s been a long time coming for Michele, who made her Broadway debut in a production of Les Misérables and later originated the role of Wendla in Spring Awakening. The actress is best known for FOX’s hit musical dramedy Glee, playing the tenacious Rachel Berry who, in the show’s fifth season, goes on to star in a Broadway revival of Funny Girl. Life imitates art.

Of course, the road to get her back to The Great White Way has been filled with enough drama for a TV series of its own. In 2020, Michele was met with a storm of criticism and allegations for her “diva behavior,” which came to a head when Samantha Marie Ware (who had a recurring arc on Glee’s sixth season) famously accused her of “traumatic microaggressions” as well as other threatening and demeaning behavior.

Things haven’t exactly been a breeze for the Funny Girl revival either. The show opened to tepid reviews in spring with its initial star Beanie Feldstein leaving the production earlier than expected amid a swirl of rumors and the sour reception (standby Julie Benko capably filled in in the interim).

Related: Julie Benko on her ‘Funny Girl’ star turn, sexy co-star, and fav queer composers

Still, nothing could mute the buzz for Michele as curious theater diehards and a number of famous faces (Ryan Murphy and Michele’s bestie Jonathan Groff among them) turned up for her big debut last night. Per a report from Variety, “the audience was clearly on Michele’s side and it’s unlikely she will ever perform in front of another crowd as eager to see her soar.”

Photo Credit: Getty Images

And soar she apparently did. Critics won’t be formally weighing in for a few more weeks, although the New York Post‘s Johnny Oleksinski published their take on opening night, praising the “real singing power” brings to the production.

‘Together with the titanic [Tovah] Feldshuh,” they continued, “the Glee star lifts this wanting production into something much more palatable than it was back in the spring. (Many of the existing issues remain, however.) This time, I actually enjoyed it.”

For more takes, we turn to the “Twitterati” in attendance, a number of whom breathlessly sang Michele’s praises at intermission and again after the curtain call.

In addition to the standing ovations, it sounds like Michele got some solid laughs, too—although not always intentionally. According to Deadline, a particular line of Funny Girl dialogue raised a few eyebrows:

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