Funny Girl (musical) Funny Girl (musical) Funny Girl is a 1963 musical (opened on Broadway in 1964) with a book by Isobel Lennart, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Bob Merrill. The semi-biographical plot is based on the life and career of Broadway star, film actress and comedian Fanny Brice featuring her stormy relationship with entrepreneur and gambler Nick Arnstein. Its original title was "My Man." The musical was produced by Ray Stark, who was Brice's son-in-law via his marriage to her daughter Frances, and starred Barbra Streisand. The production was nominated for eight Tony Awards but, facing tough competition from "Hello,
Funny Girl (film) arrangements," he recalled. "They dropped eight songs from the Broadway show and we were asked to write some new ones. They didn’t want to go with success. It was the old-fashioned MGM Hollywood way of doing a musical. They always change things to their way of vision, and they always do it wrong. But, of all my musicals they screwed up, "Funny Girl" came out the best." Because the songs "My Man", "Second Hand Rose", and "I’d Rather Be Blue" frequently were performed by the real Brice during her career, they were interpolated into the Styne-Merrill score. The soundtrack album