Fun Home, the Tony Award-winning musical by Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron—based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir—ends its Broadway run September 10 at Circle in the Square. The musical will have played 26 previews and 582 regular performances. It opened on Broadway April 19, 2015, after a sold-out Off-Broadway run at the Public Theater in 2013.
The unconventional show made history, becoming the first Broadway musical written by all women to win the Best Musical Tony, and the first Tony-winning musical to have a lesbian as its main character. Tesori and Kron also won the Tony Award for Best Original Score. It won five Tony Awards in all, including Best Book (Kron) and Best Direction (Sam Gold). Michael Cerveris won his second Tony Award for his performance as Bruce Bechdel.
The writers charted 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],” Alison 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.”
The cast and creators, including Tony winners Cerveris and Kron, filmed a video backstage, in the house and at outside events, and posted it on YouTube earlier this week as a farewell to their many fans. The video soundtrack consists of Anna Kendrick’s “Cups” (a.k.a. “When I’m Gone”) from Pitch Perfect. Watch it here:
For Beth Malone, "Butch Is A Beautiful Thing" — What This Fun Home Star Learned Playing Lesbian
“Fun Home has been a small miracle since our first preview at The Public Theater," producers Kristin Caskey, Mike Isaacson and Barbara Whitman said in an earlier statement. "We're incredibly proud and grateful that this show has had universal acclaim and such an extended life. We're thrilled that Fun Home will now head out across the country this fall, and thousands of others will get to experience this truly extraordinary production.”
The cast and creators will reunite days after the final performance to reflect on the history-making musical’s impact in a special intimate conversation September 13. Read more about the event here.
The show’s national tour is set to launch this October in Cleveland, OH.
The current Broadway cast features Tony Award winner Cerveris, Judy Kuhn, Beth Malone, Emily Skeggs, Gabriella Pizzolo, Roberta Colindrez, Cole Grey, Zell Steele Morrow, Joel Perez, Alessandra Baldacchino, Kally Duling, Maya Grace Fischbein, Perry Sherman, Jim Stanek and Nicole Van Giesen.
