Lea Michele’s ‘Funny Girl’ grosses $1.6M on opening weekend

Lea Michele recently made her debut as Funny Girl’s Fanny Brice, and she’s already raking in the big bucks.

With Michele officially stepping into Fanny Brice’s shoes as of last Tuesday, the Broadway League’s August Wilson Theater revival of Funny Girl grossed more than $1.6 million on the Glee graduate’s inaugural weekend. It’s the biggest weekend since the revival premiered in April, starring Beanie Feldstein in the title role.

Michele debuted to a standing ovation and support from Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy, Glee co-star Jonathan Groff and other TV friends.

The weekend box office soared from the previous weekend’s gross of $659,874.

However, on Saturday, Michele announced that she had tested “officially positive” for COVID-19 and would be out of action for 10 days. Like Feldstein, Michele’s Funny Girl run will be taking a brief hiatus while she recovers from COVID.

“Thank god we stayed home today and saved so many members of our company from being exposed,” Michele said in a statement shared to her Instagram story.

The Scream Queens actress took her Instagram followers on her COVID care journey, sharing pictures of soup, juice and her latest TV binge (Hulus’ Tell Me Lies) on her Instagram Story.

Michele was announced to be taking on the role of Fanny Brice in July – “a dream come true”. Feldstein’s debut show on April 24 grossed $1.1 million and averaged $1.3 million in the “Booksmart” actor’s first few weeks, Deadline reported. Feldstein’s last Funny Girl show was July 31, almost two months before her originally announced September 25 exit date.

“When production decided to take the show in a different direction, I made the extremely difficult decision to resign earlier than expected,” Feldstein said in a statement in July.

Christi Carras, a Times contributor, contributed to this report.