Director Sam Gold, who helmed the show's Off-Broadway premiere at the Public Theater last season, re-imagined the show's original proscenium staging for its Broadway transfer, which is now presented in-the-round at the intimate Circle in the Square. Fun Home will officially open on Broadway April 19.
Many members of the original Off-Broadway cast return for the uptown transfer, including stars Beth Malone, Judy Kuhn, Sydney Lucas and Michael Cerveris.
Fun Home has music by Tony Award nominee Jeanine Tesori (Caroline, Or Change; Shrek) and book and lyrics by Tony Award nominee Lisa Kron (Well).
The writers are charting new territory in a medium that has been strongly shaped by gay male culture on stage and off. Lesbian musicals are nearly unheard of. "Even musicals about women, where women are the central characters and not just a romantic lead and really have a story of their own [are rare]," Bechdel told Playbill.com during the show's original Off-Broadway run. "The moment with Small Alison singing about the butch delivery woman feels huge. To have a child sing about desire and identification; it's brilliant."' Read the full interview here.
Malone (Alison), Lucas (Small Alison) and Emily Skeggs (Medium Alison) portray author-narrator Bechdel at various stages of her life. The principal cast also features Tony nominee Kuhn as Helen Bechdel and Tony Award winner Cerveris Bruce Bechdel.
The cast is complete by Joel Perez as Roy, Roberta Colindrez as Joan, with Zell Morrow and Oscar Williams as Alison’s brothers John and Christian, respectively.
Read critics' Off-Broadway reviews of Fun Home here.
Fun Home, a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, is produced by Kristin Caskey and Mike Isaacson of Fox Theatricals and Barbara Whitman.
The creative team also includes Danny Mefford (choreography), David Zinn (set and costume design), Ben Stanton (lighting design), Kai Harada (sound design) and Chris Fenwick (music direction).
Fun Home won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical and Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Musical, Outstanding Lead Actor (Michael Cerveris) and Outstanding Featured Actress (Judy Kuhn).
Fun Home is described as "a fresh, daring new musical based on the acclaimed graphic novel by Alison Bechdel. When her father dies unexpectedly, graphic novelist Alison dives deep into her past to tell the story of the volatile, brilliant, one-of-a-kind man whose temperament and secrets defined her family and her life. Moving between past and present, Alison relives her unique childhood playing at the family’s Bechdel Funeral Home, her growing understanding of her own sexuality and the looming, unanswerable questions about her father's hidden desires."
Fun Home is produced by Fox Theatricals (Kristin Caskey, Mike Isaacson) and Barbara Whitman, along with Carole Shorenstein Hays, Tom Casserly, Paula Marie Black, Latitude Link, Terry Schnuck/Jack Lane, The Forstalls, Nathan Vernon, Mint Theatricals, Elizabeth Armstrong, JAM Theatricals, and Delman Whitney.
For tickets, visit Telecharge.com.
