It appears no one is raining on Lea Michele's parade.
It appears no one is raining on Lea Michele's parade. The Funny Girl star celebrated her show's new Broadway box office record on Tuesday, reposting the Variety article that initially reported the news on her Instagram.
Michele tagged the @funnygirlbwy account in her caption beneath a screenshot of the headline, "Funny Girl With Lea Michele Breaks a Broadway Box Office Record," along with a "⭐️" emoji. The show's account celebrated in the comments section, writing, "Hello, gorgeous! ❤️"
Funny Girl broke the all-time box-office record at Broadway's August Wilson Theater last week, collecting $2.005 million over eight performances. The figure is now the highest gross for the August Wilson; the prior record was held by Mean Girls at $1.994 in 2018.
Michele joined the musical revival in September after the production team announced its original star -- Beanie Feldstein -- would leave two months earlier than originally reported. At the time, the show was at risk of closing due to poor reviews and lackluster ticket sales.
Many of Feldstein's fans were dismayed by the news that Michele would take over, citing claims of fatphobia against Feldstein and pointing to Michele's history of alleged bullying and racism on the set of Glee. Meanwhile, Michele's fans celebrated the new casting, which came after years of Michele publicly campaigning for the role and the serendipitous coincidence that her Glee character, Rachel Berry, had also starred in Funny Girl toward the end of the show.
Despite the hullabaloo of controversy, the data tells a more simplistic story. Since Michele's casting, the August Wilson has reportedly increased from 74% capacity over the summer to 98% capacity this fall. While the show still hasn't fully recouped its losses from the slow start, the team is expected to turn a profit soon as the musical remains a large draw through the holidays.
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