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Funny Girl
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Funny Girl is a semi-biographical musical depicting the story of Fanny Brice, a Broadway star. The first Funny Girl was staged way back in 1964 on 26th March. The music was composed by Jule Styne with the lyrics of Bob Merrill. The cast of original production saw Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice along with Jean Stapleton, Sydney Chaplin, Danny Meehan and Sydney Chaplin. The show which received eight nominations of Tony Awards was presented by Ray Stark, son-in-law of Fanny Brice. Funny Girl till date continue to play in many theaters and entertain people.
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"Funny Girl" was one of the greatest musicals and cast recordings to come ouf of broadway and it created one of the world's greatest performers ever. Happily Barbra Streisand successfully transported herself to film and out came one of the most enjoyable soundtracks ever produced for a film. The film score is so minutely different, the show's composers Styne and Merrill had to take out a couple of songs from the show and wrote the beautiful "Funny Girl" in it's place for the film. This soundtrack tends to in my opinion be more authentic than the original cast recording because they put in non-original material such as "I'd Rather Be Blue Over You (Than Happy with Somebody Else)" written by Billy Rose who would much later marry Fanny Brice and it fits the early 1900's era for which "Funny Girl" is set and Barbra's comedic skills are timeless on this song you may not see it but you can hear it in her voice such as with "The Swan" .Another song they use at the film's climax is "My Man" not only was it a staple in the real Fanny Brice's act it is a power-house. Barbra insisted to sing the first part live on screen and record the latter part it is so effective and you do get all the advantages of this on the soundtrack. One more bonus to this recording is the overture composed for the film is gorgeous and they never played it in the film only on the soundtrack, interestingly they used the the opening theme music from the film as the closing music to the soundtrack.
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Funny Girl played 17 previews before opening on Mar.1964 to proceed to rack up 1348 performances before it closed on July 1, 1967. This is the show which launched the career of Barbra Streisand. Sparked by the music of Jule Styne with lyrics by Bob Merrill, and loosely based on the career of comedienne Fanny Brice, this musical featured a dozen sparkling hits, some of which became standards. The original production was nominated for eight Tony Awards. The film version, released in 1968 restarred Barbra, co-starred with Omar Sharif. It won an Academy Award Oscar for Streisand.
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Funny Girl follows the life of Fanny Brice, an aspiring Broadway actress. She starts off the show as the 'ugly duckling' struggling to find work on Broadway. Then, with the help of her dance instructor, Eddie, she lands a leading role and eventually becomes a major star. Meanwhile, she falls in love with a handsome gambler, Nick Arnstein. After a long courting process, in which Nick would leave for months at a time, Fanny and Nick finally get married. Fanny gives up her Broadway career to follow Nick, but she is forced to return to the stage when the couple runs out of money.
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Beverly Hills, CA – The 1968 Best Picture nominee “Funny Girl” will be screened as the next feature in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ “Great To Be Nominated” series. Director William Wyler’s only musical will be shown on Monday, June 26, at 7:30 p.m. in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater from an IB Technicolor Stereo print. Anne Francis, who portrayed Georgia James in the film, and Maury Winetrobe, one of the film’s three Oscar®-nominated editors, will participate in a panel discussion following the screening.
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Funny Girl has been staged in many theaters throughout the country. Although the musical has been played for more than four decades but it is still loved by people, depicting the life of a great actress of yesteryears. The tickets for Funny Girl can be bought from Online Seats at very reasonable prices.
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