At the 76th annual Tony Awards, which took place on Sunday night at the United Palace Theatre in New York City, Lea Michele and the cast of Funny Girl performed a live performance of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” that stole the show. It has been ten months since Michele took over for Beanie Feldstein as Fanny Brice in the 2022 Broadway revival. This performance comes at the end of those ten months.
Following Michele’s belting out of the musical number, the audience at the Tony Awards rose to their feet to give her a standing ovation. Her performance served as the closing act for Broadway’s greatest night.
Michele has been earning critical accolades for her performance ever since she took the stage in the main part. Many people felt that she was deserved of awards recognition, despite the fact that substitutes do not qualify for the majority of stage and theatrical prizes.
The performance at the Tony Awards also signals the beginning of the home stretch for Michele and Funny Girl, which is scheduled to come to an end on September 3, after a total of 599 performances for the show.
Michele has already scheduled her follow-up Broadway performance to the revival, but she is being tight-lipped about the specifics of the production. She dropped a hint about it in May, on the same day that she was a part of the announcement of the complete list of candidates for the 2023 Tony Awards. “I already know what it is,” she said. When asked about her upcoming comeback to the stage, the actress, being careful not to reveal too much at the moment, said that it would be “very different musically.”
Les Misérables was where Michele made her debut on Broadway, which was followed by appearances in Ragtime and Fiddler on the Roof. Her breakthrough performance was in the 2006 film Spring Awakening, in which she played Wendla alongside many other rising talents such as Jonathan Groff, Krysta Rodriguez, and Skylar Astin.
Before making her way back to the Broadway stage in September 2022, the performer achieved fame on television as Rachel Berry, a character from Funny Girl who was obsessed with Barbra Streisand and appeared in the Fox series Glee. Rachel Berry’s character was played by this performer.
Before that, Michele had a chance to catch up with the rest of the cast of Spring Awakening at the 2022 Tony Awards, when they gave a stirring performance of the award-winning, ground-breaking musical’s “Touch Me” number. In 2021, the group performed a stripped-down, one-night-only version of the coming-of-age rock musical in celebration of the production’s 15th anniversary. This was the final time audiences had the opportunity to witness the cast sing together.
Casts from nominated musicals and revivals, such as Camelot, Into the Woods, Parade, Shucked, Some Like It Hot, and Sweeney Todd, also took the stage during the 2023 Tony Awards, which were hosted by Ariana DeBose. Additionally, a special performance was given in honor of the recipients of the 2023 Special Tony Awards for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, Joel Grey and John Kander.
The Tony Awards 2023 were held over the course of a four-hour event, which began with a pre-show called The Tony Awards: Act One, which included unique material building up to the main celebration. The Tony Awards 2023 were presented by the American Theatre Wing. This event began at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) and 3:30 p.m. Pacific Time (PT) on Pluto TV. After that, DeBose took over as host, and the awards were presented live beginning at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS and Paramount+.
You can see the whole list of Tony Award winners for 2023 right here.