The University of Puget Sound’s Theatre Arts and Music departments will bring the popular graphic memoir Fun Home to the stage this spring. The Tony Award-winning musical is based on the life of cartoonist Alison Bechdel and follows her at three different ages as she examines her childhood, her experience coming out in college, and her complicated relationship with her father.
The production is directed by Prof. Jess K Smith, who chose this piece for its emotional and personal relevance.
“It’s a story about re-seeing yourself and re-seeing your parents,” Smith said. “I chose this because it feels like material that is about my students. I see myself in it, I see my students in it. It’s big-hearted and smart.”
Smith said the production gives students hands-on experience grappling with complex ideas through collaboration, critical inquiry, and creative practice, all the hallmarks of a liberal arts education. To maximize student involvement, the show features four roles that are double cast—the “Alison” cast and the “Bechdel” cast — performing on alternating nights.
“We wanted there to be plenty of performance opportunities that would highlight all of our students,” Smith said of the double-casting choice. The structure also allows audiences to experience different interpretations of the same story.
Attendees will experience Alison Bechdel’s story through three distinct stages of her life. As “Small Alison” when she was a child growing up in Pennsylvania, as “Medium Alison” navigating coming out in her first year at Oberlin College, and as “Alison,” an adult reckoning with her father's legacy. The musical follows Alison, the lesbian cartoonist, as she pieces together her own story in relationship to that of her father's.
While the show addresses serious themes, it also injects plenty of humor for balance. The title Fun Home refers to the family-owned funeral home, a setting that shapes the show’s distinctive tone.
“There's something about that tone of death paired with irreverence and humor that carries through the whole show,” Smith said. “There's so much life and humor right alongside its grief. I think that tension is both provocative and refreshing. And while this is material that is heartbreaking in many ways, it is ultimately heartwarming. This is a show about life, about soaring.”
Fun Home runs Feb. 26 through March 8 at the Norton Clapp Theatre in Jones Hall. The production contains mature content and is recommended for high school age and older. Tickets are available at https://ups.universitytickets.com/.
