Talking Points about FUN HOME

• Fun Home is the Tony Award-winning Best Musical based on Alison Bechdel’s best-selling graphic memoir. • Fun Home features music by Jeanine Tesori, book and lyrics by Lisa Kron, and direction by Sam Gold, whose work on this

production earned them Tony Awards for Best Score, Best Book, and Best Direction. • The show opened on Broadway at the Circle in the Square Theatre on April 19, 2015, following its sold-out run at The Public

Theater. • Fun Home was nominated for twelve 2015 Tony Awards, and went on to win five Tonys (the most of any show in the season),

including Best Musical, Best Score, Best Book and Best Direction. • The show is groundbreaking not only because it’s the first time a Broadway show has had a lesbian leading character, but it

also made history as the first show written exclusively by women to ever win Best Musical. Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori also became the first female writing team to win Best Score.

• Fun Home recouped its investment in just eight months on Broadway – incredibly fast for a musical, and the first show of the

2014-2015 season to do so. • Fun Home introduces us to Alison at three different ages, revealing memories of her uniquely dysfunctional family – her

mother, brothers and volatile, brilliant, enigmatic father – that connect with her in surprising new ways. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Fun Home is a refreshingly honest, wholly original musical about seeing your parents through grown-up eyes.

• Fun Home got some of the best critical reviews in recent memory, and was named to all of the major top 10 lists, including

The New York Times, Associated Press, New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, BuzzFeed, The Daily Beast, Chicago Tribune, The Hollywood Reporter and more.

• In July 2015, Fun Home became the first Broadway show ever to perform on NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” when

Emily Skeggs, Beth Malone and Roberta Colindrez performed “Changing My Major.” Frequently Asked Questions

• What is Fun Home about?

At its core, Fun Home is about a family. It’s based on Alison Bechdel’s best-selling graphic memoir, which explores her childhood growing up in a small Pennsylvania town in the 1970s with her rather eccentric family. The amazing thing about Fun Home is how relatable it is to everyone – even though the main character is a lesbian, and whether that reflects your family or not - we all have families, we all learn things about our parents or our children as we grow up that reshape that way we remember our childhoods. Each audience member comes out of Fun Home with a different favorite song, or a different character they related to most, for different reasons.

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• Why are there three different people playing Alison?

Alison is portrayed at three different ages, by three different actresses. We see her as a child, as a college aged student, and as an adult.

• Will the show be performed in the round on tour?

When the show premiered at the Public Theater, it was done on a traditional proscenium stage. On Broadway, the show is at the Circle in the Square Theatre, where it’s performed in the round. On tour, director Sam Gold is reimagining the show once again it will be performed on a proscenium stage. Luckily, Sam Gold is a genius director, and the story and the music is so powerful that it works equally well in either format.

• I know there are kids in the show, but is it a musical for kids?

While Fun Home is accessible to many ages, it’s not recommended for young children under 13 due to adult themes.

• Does this show take place in a Funeral Home?

Fun Home mainly takes place in rural Beech Creek, Pennsylvania as well as various locations throughout Alison Bechdel's childhood and time in college. The Bechdel Family home is a family-run funeral home. We prefer to avoid specifically mentioning the meaning of "FUNeral Home" as it is a play-on-words revealed in a bright and, in fact, fun song sung by the Bechdel children early on in the musical.