Feature: FUNNY GIRL at KANSAS CITY MUSIC HALL

One of the fun parts of reviewing shows in Kansas City is the occasional opportunity to meet and interview some of the talented touring performers who come through with road productions of Broadway shows.

This week I had the opportunity to spend some time with one of the featured actors in the first national touring company of FUNNY GIRL in sixty years following the original production's opening in 1964.

FUNNY GIRL is the much-fictionalized life story of comedienne and Ziegfield Follies star Fanny Brice.  Fanny was a big star on stage and on radio until her passing in 1951.  The show originally starred a young Barbra Streisand as Fanny. Streisand made such an impression in the lead role, no one dared to revive this excellent show for over a half-century.

FUNNY GIRL is Fanny’s show in the same way that GYPSY is Momma Rose’s show. FUNNY GIRL is just about as true to its subject as is GYPSY.  But it is entertaining and it is a blockbuster part.

I spoke with one of the two male leads in FUNNY GIRL.  They are Fanny’s husband Nick Arnstein and her childhood friend dancer Eddie Ryan. 

Izaiah Montaque Harris who plays Eddie Ryan is a nice young man on his first Broadway tour.  Izaiah strikes you as a very humble genuine guy.   He delights in this first opportunity to play a major role on a Broadway tour. 

Coincidently, Izaiah celebrates his twenty-seventh birthday on opening night of the Kansas City stop on this tour.

Izaiah has been dancing almost since he could walk.  He grew up on the south side of Chicago, the son of a choreographer. “She started me into tap dancing at just five years old..

The FUNNY GIRL TOUR began almost simultaneously with the closing of the Broadway version in September of 2023.  It is scheduled to continue through April of 2025. The first stop on the tour was Providence, Rhode Island.  Izaiah has played Eddie from the beginning of the tour.

Izaiah shared that his Mom really had to push him at first, but when he discovered that he could express himself through dance, Izaiah was all in.  Izaiah performed 15 consecutive dance recitals as Studio One Dance Theater.  Selected to attend the prestigious Chicago High School for the Arts with a Musical Theater focus.  After High School, Izaiah attended Columbia College of Chicago working on a degree in Contemporary, Urban, and Popular Music before heading out for New York.

He moved to New York in 2021 shortly after the peak of the pandemic where he says there was a “resurgence of tap.” Harris auditioned for FUNNY GIRL but didn't get a callback for three months. “I was just living my life. I didn't expect to get a callback at that point.” Harris was performing in Ayodele's New York City Center show “Artists at the Center” when he received the news.

This iteration of FUNNY GIRL is written by Harvey Fierstein. Harvey Fierstein is an actor, singer, and playwright.  He first gained notoriety in TORCH SONG TRILOGY, and was awarded a Tony for Best Book of a Musical for LA CAGE AUX FOLLES.  In Fierstein’s version of FUNNY GIRL, the characters of Rose, Nick and Eddie are more fleshed out.

“Eddie Ryan is a person that just really wants everyone to be OK. He is a pretty ambitious singer and tap dancer and also a choreographer. He is working in community theater, and he realizes a star is born that needs a platform. I, as Eddie Ryan, pushed Fanny Brice into all these different rooms where she is seen by more and more people. She decides to just shine, as she normally does, but everybody sees it. I become her right-hand man and her choreographer as the show goes on.”

Harvey saw Eddie as an African American rather than the white guy he was originally set up to be.

“With the revival, they have added so much more realness to it. I think every single character is more fleshed out. The biggest reason why it means a lot to me as a Black man is because of the tap choreography in Eddie’s tap. It's an African American art form,” said Izaiah..

“I get to push the culture in the tap dance field of performing, but then also playing a choreographer and also playing just a good person. It means a lot to me.”

FUNNY GIRL plays at the Kansas City Music Hall today through Sunday December 8.  Tickets are available on the American Theater Guild website.

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