Who Will Play Fanny Brice and Nicky Arnstein in the Funny Girl Revival?
Funny Girl is the classic musical, a show that's never been revived on Broadway because Barbra Streisand was so indelible in the role, it is almost sacred!
And yet some very brave people have decided that a revival of Funny Girl is coming to Broadway next year.
Was it a coincidence that Glee's Lea Michele was performing high-voltage performances of songs from Funny Girl at numerous events during this past year? Seemingly giving the world's most public audition to take on Barbra Streisand's legend-making role of Fanny Brice in the upcoming revival of the 1964 musical.Lauren Ambrose, endeared to television viewers for playing disaffected teen Claire Fisher on Six Feet Under, is the choice of the revival's producers, reports E! Online's Marc Malkin.
Ambrose will play the iconic showbiz climber when the Broadway-bound production of the musical opens in L.A. - I am not sure what they see in her....I saw her sing MY MAN, and was not wowed. And she is 33. I think it should have been someone younger. But that's just my 2 cents.
"It was never a process of finding the next Barbra," the director Bartlet Sher said on the phone from London. "No one will be able to replace Barbra. This is the toughest role I’ve ever had to cast. And Anyone who thinks they’re coming to see the next Barbra Streisand should not come see Funny Girl.”
Sher said that he looked at hundreds of people and that Ambrose was the "best actress by far who also has a singing voice and who could age through the part. Lauren was the only person I saw with the deepest acting skills, the capacity to sing everything in this role and an emotional richness that really worked for Fanny at all ages."
The semi-biographical Funny Girl is based on the life and career of Broadway, film star and comedienne Fanny Brice and her stormy relationship with sophisticated and handsome entrepreneur and gambler Nicky Arnstein. Its original title was actually My Man. 
What about Nicky Arnstein? Who will play Omar Sharif??
Um, Hello?! The OBVIOUS choice would be Omar Sharif Jr! (Omar Sharif's handsome grandson).
You may remember seeing Omar Jr on the Oscars this year.
He was the handsome tall young man in a tuxedo who delivered the Oscar to Douglas, then had a mock fight over his cane!
What a make to break in to the business and make an impression! The next morning publications around the world buzzed and he was crowned as "the hot guy battling Kirk Douglas for his cane".
"I said, 'It's now or never,'" Omar Jr. recalled. He called his grandfather, who's now 79, on the road. "He said, 'Look, I gave you my name and I gave you my good looks; there's nothing else I'm going to give you. You do the rest on your own.' I admire him for that."
Insiders say that director Bartlet Sher has in fact been in touch with Omar Jr. about the role - but that is all I know, for now.
Funny Girl will have a pre-Broadway run at L.A.'s Ahmanson Theatre from January 15 to February 26, 2012.
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