That Girl and Funny Girl

The actress Marlo Thomas and the musical Funny Girl are both headed back to Broadway. The former will appear this fall in Relatively Speaking and the latter in 2012 featuring Lauren Ambrose as Fanny Brice, a role made famous by Barbra Streisand.

Here's a Broadway marquee mystery that involves both of them.

One of my favorite TV shows growing up was That Girl, starring Thomas as an aspiring actress struggling to make it in New York City. But despite the scenes of midtown Manhattan in the opening credits, the show was filmed in California.

Every year, though, the cast and crew came to New York for location shooting. You can see some of the footage from that first season, 1966, in the DVD extras, along with a commentary by Thomas and co-creator Bill Persky.

A couple of frames grabbed my attention. The first shot shows the Broadway marquee for Funny Girl. This was apparently after Streisand left and Mimi Hines had taken over as Fannie Brice.

The next shot shows Thomas standing across the street under another marquee. When I saw it I immediately thought: What was that musical? There two clues, Prize and Tony Award. Can anyone guess?

Rachel and Kurt, Barbra and Judy

I really enjoyed the duets on Glee last night, especially Rachel (Lea Michele) and Kurt (Chris Colfer) singing "Happy Days Are Here Again" and "Get Happy." It was so beautiful. You can watch their performance here.

But clueless me, I had no idea they were paying tribute to an iconic duet by Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland, from Garland's short-lived TV show.

The program was taped on Oct. 4, 1963, and CBS executives were so impressed they edited it quickly and broadcast it two days later. Streisand ended up receiving an Emmy nomination.

In 1991, she recalled:

"Extraordinary talent went into the making of this show. The director was Norman Jewison, the musical director was Mort Lindsey and Mel Torme did special musical material. There's also a brief visit by the wonderful Ethel Merman — but most of all there was Judy Garland. Miraculous ... soulful ... divine ... Singing these duets with her was sheer bliss. I was 21 years old."

A dream role for Lea Michele

Now this is one bit of Jewish-related musical theatre trivia that I did not know.

Lea Michele, formerly of Spring Awakening on Broadway and currently in Glee, talks to The Washington Post about the Fox series and her ideal musical role:

"I want to be in Funny Girl. And I want [Glee creator] Ryan Murphy to direct it."

Would she do it on Broadway?

"I would do it in a basement in Brooklyn, if somebody would let me do it! It's the best role ever -- any Jewish girl would want to play Fanny Brice!"

Best role ever? Wow! Although I guess it makes sense - what other musicals are there with a Jewish woman in the lead role?

I don't think I've ever seen Funny Girl, based on the life of comedienne, singer and actress Fanny Brice. (Okay, maybe snippets here and there on tv.) Rest assured I'll be putting the movie in my Netflix queue right away.

The musical ran for three years on Broadway between 1964 and 1967, with Barbra Streisand in the title role, amassing 1,348 performances. Streisand reprised the role for the 1968 movie and won an Oscar, sharing the Best Actress prize with Katharine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter.

And Funny Girl has never been revived on Broadway, although there was a special one-night benefit performance for The Actors Fund in 2002.

With the musical Ragtime and two Neil Simon plays - Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound - on the Great White Way this fall, there'll be more Jewish characters than I can remember. Maybe it's time for a Funny Girl revival?

Here's a great program from 1964 about Funny Girl's opening night on Broadway, featuring interviews with Streisand and others. It's so poignant to hear people talk about her when she was just on the cusp of fame: