LET THE BUSHNELL LEAD THE PARADE TO "FUNNY GIRL"

Don’t let anybody rain on your parade. If you have a dream, even if it is to want to be a star on Broadway, don’t listen to anyone who tells you it shouldn’t happen, it won’t happen or it can’t happen. For forward and independent thinking Fanny Brice, who grows up on the less than ritzy Lower East Side, it is quite wonderful she had her ears closed to all the naysayers of discouragement who surrounded her. To glory in her story of optimism and indomitability tap your way to the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts from Tuesday, June 18 to Sunday, June 23 for a tour on the sunny side of the street in “Funny Girl.”

With a sterling and song studded silver score by Jule Styne and lyrics by Bob Merrill, an updated book by Harvey Fierstein based on the original classic by Isobel Lennart, tap choreography by Ayodele Casel, choreography by Ellenore Scott and direction by Michael Mayer, “Funny Girl” has been hailed as a love letter to the theatre, with a shining envelope containing one of Broadway’s brightest lights: Fanny Brice.

Be prepared for a sensational and spectacular Katerina McCrimmon as Fanny and Melissa Manchester as her controlling and discouraging mother. This semi-autobiographical story showcases the life and career of a comedian and show business star who has an off-and-on difficult and stormy relationship with the powerful entrepreneur and gambler Nicky Arnstein. Their affair informs much of the passionate action. Set in New York City just before and following World War I, the show features such numbers as “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” “You Are Woman. I Am Man,” “People,” “Who Are You Now,” and “I’m the Greatest Star.”

The musical is set as a flashback, as Fanny is a star-struck teenager, her first vaudeville job as a chorus dancer, her complex relationship with the handsome gambler Nicky, her stardom as a Ziegfeld performer in his follies, ending in the present day with the realization of all she has gained and lost and regained as a beautiful woman.

For tickets ($38 and up), call the Bushnell, 166 Capitol Avenue, Hartford at 860-987-5900 or online at bushnell.org. Performances are Tuesday to Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

Follow the intriguing path led by Fanny Brice as she sets her steps determinately to lead her own parade straight to Broadway and beyond.