We are only one February away from Lea Michele taking the stage at the August Wilson Theatre to step into the role of Fanny Brice in Funny Girl. That is so much time, but also so little time. It’s hard to tell in the summer.
To catch you up to speed: Beanie is out, Standby Julie is in (for the month of August), and Lea canceled her remaining City Winery shows to focus on rehearsing for Funny Girl. There are a lot of moving parts to this operation, but here at Gawker we only really care what Lea is up to. (But props to Julie for her New York Times profile!)
So what is Lea up to? Well I’m so glad you asked.
Two days ago she posted a photo of herself in front of the Funny Girl marquee wearing the black slip dress she has not taken off since the Spring Awakening cast reunited.
Also in that carousel is a throwback photo of her in an identical pose from the Glee set. I have to say, the real-life marquee is much better than the one that sprung from Ryan Murphy’s imagination. Purple? With silver lettering? Hideous, especially in comparison to the sharp red-black motif on the show’s present day marketing materials, which once also included an adorable caricature of Beanie but not anymore.
But if you thought Lea was only going to post one photo in front of the marquee, well you’re dumb. This is her big moment, and a big moment is not real unless shared with a bestie. In this case, one who has seen your whole entire vagina.
It’s Jonathan Groff! You can tell he’s happy for her because he’s grasping her so tightly you might think he was concerned she’d blow away.
What else is going on in Lea World? Well, she read a children’s book for the SAG-AFTRA foundation, which started a new cycle of jokes about her ability to read.
For the record, obviously she can read. We need some new kind of joke and/or rumor to start saying about her. Like that she’s one of those people who can’t turn left, or that she saw Marcel the Shell with Shoes On and got really scared because she thought it was real. Those are just off the top of my head, and I’m very open to workshopping some more as we continue to track what Lea is up to in the weeks leading up to Funny Girl.
