“Fun Home” is Relatable, Brilliant and Paving the Way for Women Musical Theatre Writers

Feature Image via BroadwayWorld

Every so often, I see a musical that changes my life. That’s a big statement, but my life revolves around musical theatre and the feelings it gives me, so it’s inevitable that I’ll be deeply affected by a musical. I’ve only seen three musicals that caused this life-changing sensation, so when I saw Fun Home at The Public Theater, sparks flew, and I saw fireworks. Fun Home is a new musical (!), based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel (!), written by two women (!), about a lesbian (!). I didn’t know much about the musical prior to seeing it for the first time (yes, there have been multiple viewings), as I had never read the source material (which is a fancy term for the book on which the musical is based).

Here’s the thing about musicals: it takes a long time, a lot of rewriting, and a lot of money to get one from page to stage. A musical can easily take ten years from its first draft to a major New York or regional production. Fun Home has journeyed through readings and workshops in different cities. In the fall of 2012, the musical was produced in the Lab Series at The Public Theater. This was my first exposure to it.

In the Lab Series, the writers were in the audience, making script changes on a daily basis. In labs, sometimes there are small changes: a line gets rewritten or a joke that doesn’t land gets cut, but sometimes entire songs and chunks of book (dialogue) are rewritten, cut, or added. You could see the show twice and it would be completely different. The writers take their cues from the audience. In the rehearsal room, a line, lyric, musical progression, etc. could seem great, but it may not work in front of the audience. This is one of my favorite things about live theatre: the audience is a player in the production.

After a year of revisions (and anticipation), Fun Home has returned to The Public Theater in a fully-staged Off-Broadway production. I saw the musical three times in previews (changes were still made until opening night), and once after it opened, and I felt all the feelings. Fun Home centers around the protagonist, Alison, in three phases of her life. There’s Small Alison (Sydney Lucas), who is in elementary school, Medium Alison (Alexandra Socha), who is in college, and Alison (Beth Malone), who is in her forties. At its core, Fun Home is about Alison discovering and accepting her sexuality and its relation to her father’s sexuality and his death. Lisa Kron‘s book and lyrics prove that no one is ever too young or too old to come of age. Jeanine Tesori’s music complements the tone and spirit of Alison and her family’s awakenings.

As every musical should, Fun Home has a mixture of light-hearted and heart-wrenching songs. My favorite is “Changing My Major,” which explores Medium Alison’s euphoria after her first sexual experience with a woman. Socha is wonderful as the college freshman, riding the emotional roller coaster of vulnerability, excitement, and nerves of discovering one’s sexual orientation. Small Alison has an inspiring song about seeing a butch woman for the first time, perfected by Lucas, who has more spunk than I’ve ever seen in a kid. Watch out for her; I see a big career in her future. Malone ties the piece together as the adult version of Alison, reflecting on her past and trying to make sense of her relationship to her father. Judy Kuhn, who plays Helen Bechdel, Alison’s mother, makes brilliant, subtle acting choices and broke my heart with her solo number. Michael Cerveris, who plays Bruce Bechdel, Alison’s father, is equally strong, as his relationship with himself, his wife and Alison play a key role in the musical.

In musical theatre, I am used to seeing straight female protagonists fall in love with straight men. There’s nothing wrong with that, but as a lesbian, it is nice to see queer protagonists struggle with issues that are similar to mine. Not only does Fun Home put a lesbian center stage, the lesbian character is a fully developed, three dimensional human being with thoughts, feelings, and complex issues. Alison is trying to make sense of herself and her family in different stages of her life, which is something to which I deeply relate. I have struggled with accepting myself and my sexual orientation, and I’ve discovered the complexity of how learning to love myself affects my family. I saw myself in all three Alisons, I saw my mother in Helen, and I saw my father in Bruce. I have a complicated relationship with my father, and every moment I witnessed Alison communicate with Bruce, I saw my relationship with my dad. The most beautiful part of a musical theatre, to me, is seeing myself on stage. As a writer, my goal is for audience members to see themselves in characters and situations I have written, as lived by actors.

via [Zimbio] <> writers Lisa Kron (left) and Jeanine Tesori (right) via

writers Lisa Kron (left) and Jeanine Tesori (right)
via Zimbo

As mentioned before, Fun Home is written by two women. The visibility of women writers is very important in musical theatre. The majority of musical theatre writers are white, gay, cisgender men. While musical theatre boasts a world of acceptance, rainbows, and unicorns, women writers are in the minority, and I have been discriminated against as a woman and as a lesbian. A well known television and theatre actor once told me that lesbians “belong on the softball field.” He was joking, but his comment was not abnormal. Women writers are seen as over-emotional creatures, and we’re not taken seriously.

Last Broadway season (2012-2013), pop icon Cyndi Lauper, who wrote the score for Kinky Boots, was the first woman to ever win the Tony Award (think Oscars or Grammys, but for Broadway) for Best Score without a male co-writer. This is big time. I can count on one hand the number of female Broadway musical theatre writers. Since Fun Home debuted Off-Broadway this fall, the visibility of women writers and queer women characters have been discussed. While I hope Tesori and Kron are paving the way for women writers, at least the conversation is being started.

The future of female musical theatre writers is looking up. Intern Grace compiled a playlist of musical theatre songs written by women, and there are many emerging female musical theatre writers. Many of these women are bookwriters, but more and more women are writing lyrics and music. As a female musical theatre writer who writes with a female composer, I’m excited for the continued growth of female musical theatre writers.

If you’re in New York City, please do yourself a favor and see Fun Home at The Public Theater. It’s an amazing piece of theatre, and it will touch your heart.


Rachel Kunstadt is a librettist/lyricist, pursuing an MFA at the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She is a founder and the Producing Artistic Director of LezCab, a cabaret series celebrating queer women in musical theatre. She resides in Manhattan with her shih tzu, Bernie. www.rachelkunstadt.com. Tweet her @rkunstadt.

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Rachel

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16 Comments

  1. I saw this last week and I haven’t stopped thinking about it! It was so wonderful! And it just got extended again, so people have until mid December to go see it! I might go a second time if I can.

  2. I wish I could see this. I really recommend you read the book too – there’s such complexity in the words, which surprised me for a graphic book. I didn’t think this would be my thing until it won Autostraddle’s book poll on Goodreads, but it absolutely deserved it.

    • It’s a cliche to say I know, but Fun Home was a book I literally could not put down. As soon as I finished it, I needed to read it again right away, because it’s so imbued with detail and complexity. Neither me nor my father are gay, but he and I have a very distant, somewhat uncomfortable relationship with each other, and I saw a lot of myself and my father in Bechdel’s book. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.

    • Unfortunately, it’s a difficult rush, as it’s almost always sold out by the time rush tickets would go on sale. Cancelation/standby tickets are sold at full price. The Public does offer student tickets for $35.

  3. Fun Home was AMAZING, both in musical and book form. I also love that apparently Alison Bechdel rejected a film outright because she couldn’t bear it if someone did a terrible job and it existed forever.

    Also, small Alison blew my socks off. She had so many songs where it was just her or mostly her standing alone in the middle of the stage and she just OWNED IT.

  4. I LOVED this show. I saw it with my two queer best friends and also my mom and aunt, who kept getting confused at how hard the three of us were laughing at the really on-point college lesbian jokes.

    I mean I was pretty worried because the book is so amazing how could the musical ever live up to expectations?? but it totally did. so good.

    • Ahhh I saw it with my grandma and had the same experience. We ran into her friend before the show and the friend didn’t know anything about it except that it had had good reviews, and so I explained to her the general premise and was like, HAVEN’T YOU HEARD OF DYKES TO WATCH OUT FOR?? IT’S REALLY WELL KNOWN. And GrandmaFriend said, “Oh, in some circles, I’m sure.” And I sighed.

      Though to be fair, I’m not really sure how well known DTWOF is outside of Some Circles. Still.

      The moral of the story is that Grandma and the GrandmaFriends loved Fun Home, too, so now maybe they will read DTWOF.

  5. So excited to hear about this. Alison Bechdel spoke at my university back in September and she mentioned the musical then.

  6. Loved it. And I do not typically like musicals, I confess (I’m plays-only in my avid theatre-going, usually). But I couldn’t miss this one.

    Young Alison’s “Ring of Keys” song made my LIFE. Seriously. And the audience demographic made for an excellent collective reaction. I blushed because it totally spelled out all the things I find super-hot about my date sitting next to me and she full well knew it, but it was so great to hear a full house of people laughing because “this is me” or “this is what I’m hot for!” How often do we get THAT in major entertainment?

  7. MUSICALS!! ABOUT!! LESBIANS!! Literally, I never expected more than”Old Fashioned Lesbian Love Story” from The Wild Party and now we’ve got real lesbians’ stories on stage written by women?!? I am the happiest queer actor ever right now. I want tickets to see it 3 times for Christmas…

  8. Oh my goodness. I cannot WAIT until they release amateur rights for this. By which I mean I will have wait for the next five-to-ten years… But then I will DEFINITELY be directing a production.

  9. I wish I could have seen this musical! It would mean a lot to have a musical based on a lesbian’s coming of age performed in areas not as used to the NY scene of acceptance. Everyone needs to see something like this, and with it based on Bechdel, it would surely be worth it.

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