Hap Erstein

Shankman does not stray far from Streisand’s line deliveries and vocal phrasing, without coming off as an imitation. Fanny is still the center of the show, but she no longer monopolizes the evening. As Nick, Stephen Mark Lukas elbows his way into a couple of Shankman’s numbers, which he delivers with a creamy baritone, though his acting is often on the stiff side. And as Fanny’s pal and booster Eddie Ryan, Izaiah Montaque Harris gets some standout time showing off his considerable tap skill. Perhaps the biggest name in the cast is Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Melissa Manchester, though she is largely wasted as Fanny’s mother.

At the matinee I attended, Jonathan Hoover took on the heavy lifting of Daniel. He possessed the requisite high energy for the role, though he often substituted volume for nuance. Also a standout was Giselle Gutierrez as his elder daughter Lydia, dueting nicely with Hoover on the 11 o’clock number, “Just Pretend.”