Lea Michele has garnered acclaim for her turn as Fanny Brice in the Broadway musical revival.
On Sunday night, during the 76th annual Tony Awards, Lea Michele and the cast of Funny Girl delivered a show-stopping rendition of "Don't Rain on My Parade" live on stage at the United Palace Theatre in New York City. The performance comes 10 months after Michele took over as Fanny Brice from Beanie Feldstein in the 2022 Broadway revival.
Michele's performance closed out Broadway's biggest night and after she belted the musical number she was met with a standing ovation from the Tony Awards crowd.
Since taking the stage in the lead role, Michele has earned critical acclaim for her performance, with many feeling that she was deserving of awards recognition even though replacements do not qualify for most stage and theater honors.
The Tony Awards performance also marks the final stretch for Michele and Funny Girl, which is slated to close on Sept. 3, after 599 total performances for the production.
While she's keeping tight-lipped on the details, Michele has already planned her Broadway follow-up to the revival. "I already know what it is," she teased in May, the same day she helped announce the full list of 2023 Tony Award nominees. Careful not to give too much away at the time, the actress said her return to the stage will be "very different musically."
Michele made her Broadway debut in Les Misérables, before appearing in Ragtime and Fiddler on the Roof. Her breakout role came as Wendla among the many young stars, including Jonathan Groff, Krysta Rodriguez and Skylar Astin, in 2006's Spring Awakening.
The performer then went on to TV stardom as Rachel Berry, who had an obsession with Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, in the Fox series, Glee, before returning to the Broadway stage in September 2022.
Prior to that, Michele reunited with the cast of Spring Awakening during the 2022 Tony Awards, when they delivered an emotional performance of “Touch Me” from the award-winning, groundbreaking musical. The last time fans got to see the cast sing together was in 2021, during a stripped-down, one-night-only take on the coming-of-age rock musical in honor of its 15th anniversary.
During the 2023 Tony Awards, which were hosted by Ariana DeBose, casts from the nominated musical and revivals, including Camelot, Into the Woods, Parade, Shucked, Some Like It Hot and Sweeney Todd, also took the stage while a special performance was presented in honor of 2023 Special Tony Awards for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre recipients, Joel Grey and John Kander.
The 2023 Tony Awards, meanwhile, unfolded over a four-hour event that first kicked off with The Tony Awards: Act One, a pre-show of exclusive content leading up to the main celebration. That event started at 6:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. PT on Pluto TV before DeBose took over as host with awards handed out live starting at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS and Paramount+.
Check out the full list of 2023 Tony Award winners here.
RELATED CONTENT:
