‘Funny Girl’ lead Hannah Shankman has a lot in common with Fanny Brice in national tour making stop at First Interstate Center for the Arts
When you put the two side by side, it should come as no surprise that Hannah Shankman was selected to play Fanny Brice in the national tour of “Funny Girl.”
The similarities between the two are more than a little uncanny. Both are Jewish women, both grew up in New York City, and both had their sights set on the stage from an early age.
Brice didn’t grow up in a theatrical family like Shankman (though Brice’s younger brother Lew would go onto be a performer himself), but both ended up making a name for themselves on Broadway.
“It definitely is not lost on me, the similarities between us growing up in New York, being Jewish, being truly go-getters,” Shankman said. “I’ve never taken no for an answer, and, honestly, neither did Fannie.”
After previously acting as the Fanny Brice standby on the “Funny Girl” national tour, Shankman is now stepping into the lead role full-time when the tour resumes in Seattle in late September. “Funny Girl” opens in Spokane on Tuesday and runs through Oct. 6 at the First Interstate Center for the Arts.
“Funny Girl,” which was adapted into a film of the same name starring Barbra Streisand, who originated the role of Brice on Broadway, features music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill and a book by Isobel Lennart.
“Funny Girl” is a semi-biographical musical about Brice (Shankman), star of stage, film and radio. The musical finds Brice reflecting on her life, including her tumultuous relationship with husband Nick Arnstein (Stephan Mark Lukas), a professional gambler, and career, including her time as a member of the “Ziegfeld Follies.”
The musical also stars Melissa Manchester (Mrs. Brice), Izaiah Montaque Harris (Eddie Ryan), Walter Coppage (Florenz Ziegfeld), Leah Platt (Emma/Mrs. Nadler), Christine Bunuan (Mrs. Meeker), Cheryl Stern (Mrs. Strakosh) and David Foley Jr. (Tom Keeney).
“Funny Girl” also features Vinny Andaloro, Jack Bianchi, Courtney Brady, Kate E. Cook, Connor Coughlin, Joel Douglas, Annabelle Duffy, Mathew Fedorek, Alex Hartman, Kathy Liu, Missy Marion, Bryan Charles Moore, Sami Murphy, Emily Anne Nester, Myah Segura, Brendan Sheehan, Jordon Taylor, Sean Seamus Thompson, Travis Ward-Osborne and Annaliese Wilbur.
The tour uses the same revised book Harvey Fierstein created for the 2022 Broadway revival, which both trims down the show and also adds moments to clarify the storyline. Shankman said this production, which she called “a whole new ‘Funny Girl,’ ” also features new songs by Styne and Merrill and new choreography by Ellenore Scott and Ayodele Casel.
Following in the footsteps of not only Brice herself but also fellow Fannies such as Streisand, Beanie Feldstein, Julie Benko and Lea Michele, who all played the role during the Broadway revival, and Katerina McCrimmon, who played Fanny for the first part of the national tour, is no small task. But Shankman, thinking back to those similarities, feels like the opportunity was practically destined the moment she began performing.
“Fanny was such a trailblazer for women that it almost feels, and I’m going to use a Yiddish word, but it feels very bashert, which means ‘meant to be,’ ” Shankman said. “She really paved the way for so many female comedians, like Joan Rivers and Sarah Silverman, that being a female performer, a Jewish female performer, it just feels so right to step into these shoes.”
Stepping in those shoes full-time will be a change in schedule for Shankman but not a change in how she performs as Brice. While she was a standby, she still felt she had the ability to put her own spin on the character and plans to continue bringing that spin to the show each performance, albeit with a chance to dive deeper into Brice – the person and the character.
Helping in that deep dive was a recent opportunity to attend “Fanny’s Day Out” at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles with Benko and McCrimmon, which Shankman called a treat. The exhibit featured memorabilia from Brice and the “Funny Girl” film adaptation as well as lunch at the museum’s Fanny’s Restaurant and Cafe.
Brice, and “Funny Girl,” still hold a place in people’s hearts, Shankman said, because of Brice’s story of triumph but also her humor, which she used to connect with people on and offstage, leading to yet another connection between the two performers.
“That’s how I operate in life, so it’s so fun to step into those shoes and to really have the opportunity to not only use humor to make people laugh, but also sometimes to lighten the mood or to connect with people,” Shankman said. “It’s really such a vehicle in the show, and it’s a pleasure to get to play.”