Inside the Broadway Blow-Up Over Lea Michele Replacing Beanie Feldstein in

All through the roiling saga of Beanie Feldstein leaving Broadway musical Funny Girl, and Lea Michele being announced as her replacement in the role of Fanny Brice, they have been represented by the same theater agent, The Daily Beast has learned.

David Kalodner, of top agency WME’s theater department, declined to comment to The Daily Beast on how he had balanced both actors’ interests in the backstage negotiations that have led Michele to replace Feldstein in the Broadway show, now more noted for its drama offstage than on. Feldstein received mostly negative reviews for her performance, particularly her singing abilities, after the show opened on April 24.

A senior show source, who requested anonymity, also revealed that Michele—famed for very publicly hungering for the role, and performing Brice’s songs in Glee and at the 2010 Tony Awards—was officially signed on to play Brice “a week and a half” after this year’s Tony Awards, before an internet-inferno-causing Gawker article on June 30 that reported she was “set to take over the role.”

At that moment, the deal was already done and signed, the source said. The article caused “great upset” to Feldstein, they said, adding that after its publication, show producers were prevented from talking to Feldstein directly as they had been able to up until then, and instead were told to go through her representatives.

On Sunday, Feldstein caused another internet firestorm when she announced via Instagram that she was leaving the show on July 31, not September 25 as had been announced last month: “Once the production decided to take the show in a different direction, I made the extremely difficult decision to step away sooner than anticipated.”

Her much-praised understudy Julie Benko will take over the role until Michele’s first performance on Sept. 6, and will play Fanny every Thursday from then on.

Glee star Jane Lynch who plays Fanny’s mother in the show, had been announced in June as leaving on Sept. 25 alongside Feldstein. But on Monday, producers revealed her final performance will be on Sept. 4, and that her replacement, Tovah Feldshuh, will be joining the production on Sept. 6 alongside Michele, meaning the two former Glee stars will not be reunited on stage.

Producers were “shocked in the moment,” but not surprised by Feldstein’s Instagram post on Sunday announcing her sudden departure from the show, the show source said. “There has been an ongoing conversation with Beanie and the team, and it hasn’t been fruitful and it hasn’t been kind. As soon as the Gawker story appeared about Lea, it got very contentious. She stopped speaking. Up until then it was very much one-on-one. Anyone could speak to her, she had been very light and lovely, and felt she had the support of the entire team. She knew we were all doing what we could for her. If not that day then the day after, we were told we could not speak to her, and to go through her reps. That was the first negative shift. Everything went downhill very quickly after that.

“After Sunday, everything is tense at the theater. One person working there told me, ‘No one knows what to say to Beanie.’”

Representatives for Feldstein, Michele, Kalodner, lead producer Sonia Friedman, and the production of Funny Girl did not return requests for comment for this article.

There was disagreement among producers after the negative reviews of the show appeared. The Daily Beast understands that a minority of the producers wanted to eject Feldstein from the role quickly; a majority, led by Friedman, wanted to stand by her, which is what happened.

“I remember our meeting about ads for the show the day after the reviews came out,” the source said. “It was brutal. We went through what we could say. The decision was made to double down on Beanie, and the joy and fun she was having. It was crazy to say that given what had been written, but that’s what we did. Another strategy was to say how more like Fanny Brice Beanie was than Barbra Streisand had been. We found the few good things people had said, stood by her, and kept going. The critics were not wrong, but we tried to major on Beanie’s sweetness and innocence—but that doesn’t get you away from the brass tacks of ‘You’ve got to be able to sing.’

“We really did stand by her. Everything was great and grand, except everything was not great and grand. The reviews affected Beanie big-time. I don’t think we cared for her enough in that regard. It was her first big role on Broadway carrying the show. I don’t think we equipped her with how to do…