Jane Lynch joins the Beanie Feldstein-led Broadway revival of Funny Girl

Actor Jane Lynch is the next star to join the Broadway revival of Funny Girl. Tony award-winning director Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening, American Idiot) is taking on the musical that originally starred Barbra Streisand in 1964, and featured hits such as “Don’t Rain On My Parade” and “You Are Woman, I Am Man.”

“The first music I ever learned in my life was from Funny Girl. My mother was a huge fan of musicals and especially this one—we bonded on this musical,” Lynch tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I knew every breath of the Broadway cast album before I was like 10 years old. I sang it all over the house. We were big fans of it.”

Beanie Feldstein (Booksmart, Impeachment: American Crime Story) will play the title Funny Girl, Fanny Brice. Lynch will star as Mrs. Rosie Brice, Fanny’s supportive mother who singlehandedly raises Fanny and her siblings after separating from her alcoholic husband.

“In the course of the musical, [Fanny Brice] doesn’t think she’s pretty, but there is absolutely not one thought in her head that stops her from going for what she wants to do, which is to be the greatest star,” Lynch says of Feldstein’s character. “That’s the kind of confidence I think she was born with but also I think that was nurtured by her mother.”

Other new cast additions include Tony award nominee and Les Misérables star Ramin Karimloo and A Soldier’s Play star Jared Grimes.

Lynch made her Broadway debut back in 2013 as Miss Hannigan in the revival of Annie. The actor also, of course, showed off her singing chops on Ryan Murphy’s Glee as the intimidating Sue Sylvester for six seasons.

Funny Girl tickets go on sale beginning Friday, Oct. 8 at 10 a.m. ET.