You can't rain on Lea Michele's parade at 'Funny Girl'

msn.com:

also serenaded Streisand at a tribute with a “Funny Girl” song. Michele, now 36, finds herself stepping into the role Streisand made famous by taking over the role of Fanny from Beanie Feldstein in the show's first revival on Broadway, with Mayer again her director.

It's a dream come true, but it has also created waves. The high-profile casting change rocked the Broadway community this summer, with Feldstein leaving early after Michele was announced, giving the impression that things backstage were strained at best.

Michele noted that one actor replacing another on Broadway is nothing new. “People leave shows and people come into shows. I think that the media is really drawn to drama and especially pitting women against each other, which I think is so unfortunate,” said Michele. “All I can say for me is how grateful I am to have been accepted with such open arms into what I know has been a lot of just different changes. ”Michele praised Feldstein — “I think that Beanie was fantastic” — as well as her understudy, Julie Benko, who will play Thursday performances — and threw herself into rehearsals.

For someone who knows the musical so intimately, even Michele was stunned to realize how much work she needs to do. “I think that I had potentially an expectation that I would just come into this and everything would be super-easy,” she said. "But then there are also other parts of it where I had to take the car and break it down completely and take out all the nuts and bolts and then look at everything, which is extremely scary because you’re like, ‘Wait a second, I have to go on in two weeks.