He had been counting on $750,000 to $1 million from each of them, he said, but now they were skeptical about the profitability of “Funny Girl” in a theater season when six other classic musicals — including “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” and “Evita” — were also opening in revival on Broadway. Some of the investors were also feeling the pinch of the nation’s economic troubles, which New York commercial theater has largely escaped so far.  At the same time, the buzz among Broadway ticket agents and other producers was that the star of “Funny Girl,” the television actress Lauren Ambrose (“Six Feet Under”), might end up giving a brilliant performance, but she was unlikely to sell many tickets on her name. Most musical revivals are star-dependent, since theatergoers tend to be familiar with the music; hence the casting of stars in current Broadway hits like “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” (Daniel Radcliffe), “Anything Goes” (Sutton Foster), and “Follies” (Bernadette Peters).  And “Funny Girl” was a star vehicle if there ever was one, with the original production making Barbra Streisand’s reputation for her performance as the comedian Fanny Brice — a legendary run that is one reason the musical has not been staged on Broadway since then.  On Thursday afternoon Mr. Boyett — who has won nine Tony Awards for “War Horse,” “South Pacific,” “Spamalot,” and other shows — made the toughest call that a theater producer can make. He indefinitely postponed the Los Angeles tryout of “Funny Girl,” which was already selling tickets for a winter run, and scrapped a springtime transfer to Broadway, which had been officially announced just four weeks ago.  He spent the next few hours on the telephone with, among others, his director Bartlett Sher (who said on Friday that he was still “in a state of shock”) and Michael Ritchie, the artistic director the Center Theater Group who had booked “Funny Girl” in a handshake deal for the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles.  Mr. Boyett, who had spent eight years developing the “Funny Girl” revival, declined to name the investors who dropped out. But he said he had never found himself in this position before.  “I just kept hearing from other producers, and then from my investors, that the timing was wrong and that the economic landscape wasn’t right to try to do a top-level revival of ‘Funny Girl,’” said Mr. Boyett, whose budget for the show included an orchestra of 23 musicians (large by current Broadway standards), a cast of about 25 actors, and multiple sets. “I think we could have turned a profit in a year on Broadway, but there were just no guarantees that the tourists and others would flock to the show in the numbers we needed.”  Pulling the plug on a previously announced Broadway production is rare, especially when (as in this case) theaters have been booked and actors cast. (The Tony nominee Bobby Cannavale was slated to play Nicky Arnstein, Brice’s love interest.) Since the economic downturn began in 2008, only one major commercial production of a musical revival — “Hair” — had difficulty raising money at the 11th hour; in that instance, new producers were brought in and “Hair” ultimately opened in March 2009 at a cost of $5.8 million. The show went on to win the Tony for best musical revival and turn a profit in five months.  “Financing Broadway productions is no doubt challenging in this economy, but over all most investors have been standing by shows and our theaters are pretty much booked up with productions,” said Philip J. Smith, chairman of the Shubert Organization, one of Broadway’s chief landlords and the owner of the Imperial Theater where “Funny Girl” was set to run.  The Imperial will now go to “Nice Work if You Can Get It,” a Gershwin songbook show whose producers had been vying with “Funny Girl” for the theater.  Landing the Imperial for “Funny Girl” proved to be a curveball, Mr. Boyett said. With Broadway theaters generally scarce this season, he had initially been planning to open the revival in Los Angeles in January to energize his investors about the production and Ms. Ambrose’s performance. When the Imperial unexpectedly became available in early October with the closing announcement for “Billy Elliot,” Mr. Boyett chose to give a quick yes to an offer from the Shubert Organization.  “I had been thinking of bringing ‘Funny Girl’ to Broadway in late summer or fall 2012, when maybe there would be fewer musical revivals running than in the current season, but the Imperial is a great theater that doesn’t become available very often,” Mr. Boyett said.  In Los Angeles, Mr. Ritchie is now looking for a quick fill-in for the Ahmanson. “We hadn’t spent much money on ‘Funny Girl’ at this point, so we’ll be able to move on,” he said. “Bob is a great producer and, really, I think he made a courageous decision here.”  Representatives for Ms. Ambrose did not reply for requests for comment on Friday, but Mr. Sher described her as “heartbroken, like the rest of us.”  He and Mr. Boyett insisted that the revival did not fall apart because of concerns about her drawing power; investors had not seen her perform songs from the show — Mr. Boyett does not usually hold so-called backers’ auditions — but details about her audition performance and singing ability had been provided to investors, Mr. Boyett added.  Mr. Sher noted that, inevitably, “investors might have had concerns about any actress we picked given that Barbra Streisand was extraordinary as Fanny.” (Ms. Streisand won an Academy Award for best actress for the 1968 film adaptation.) However, he added, “I think Lauren would have given a performance that would have long been remembered.”  Dave Itzkoff contributed to this article.
When four investors each backed out, the âFunny Girlâ revival planned for Los Angeles and Broadway had to close down.