Brooke Whitling, Contributing Photographer

Content warning: This article contains one mention of suicide.

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From Feb. 29 to Mar. 2, the Off-Broadway Theater became a home for an undergraduate production of the 2015 Broadway musical “Fun Home.” The show adapts Alison Bechdel’s 2006 graphic novel memoir, documenting her relationship with her sexuality and her father through three stages of her life: childhood, her college years and finally, at 43 years old.

Audience chatters fell quiet in the Off-Broadway Theater as an upbeat piano melody bounced into the air. A spotlight landed on an upstage desk, complete with sketch pads, Micron pens and an adult Alison. Before her, a childhood memory with her father unfolded as her past was constructed through alternating memories.

In the play, it is revealed through non-linear vignettes that Alison’s father — a high school English teacher, funeral home director and closeted gay man — died by suicide in her freshman year of college, shortly after she came out as lesbian. Their psychologically complex and changing relationship, through her childhood and early adulthood, is examined as Alison turns 43 years old — the same age as her father when he died. Alison, never leaving the stage, becomes an audience to her life through lenses of grief and logic-seeking reflection. 

Bechdel, the show’s subject and creator, is an acclaimed cartoon artist. Her comic-strip serial “Dykes to Watch Out For” was published for 25 years, illustrating a string of unrelated plotlines between a group of lesbian women. The Bechdel Test, a metric for sexism in the fictional portrayal of women, originated within the series. Though Bechdel originally wrote the concept as comedy, it has grown to widespread use in film and media critique since its 1985 publication.

Her creation of “Fun Home” brought her to literary notability as the graphic memoir was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award. It also won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book, the Stonewall Book Award for non-fiction, the Publishing Triangle-Judy Grahn Nonfiction Award and the Lambda Literary Award.

The memoir’s musical adaptation was equally recognized, winning five Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Original Score. The musical adaption also received a nomination for the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album and was a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. 

Critics of “Fun Home,” in both its literary and theatrical forms, commented on the narrative’s poignant and vulnerable portrayal of the human experience. This trait was a focus of the undergraduate production’s direction. 

Naomi Schwartzburt ’24, the director of “Fun Home,” spoke about her connection to the show and its essential emotive arc in an interview with the News. 

“The structure of Fun Home is so unique and compelling because it’s nonlinear. We’re not necessarily seeing the story as it unfolded in real life, but we’re seeing the important emotional components come together and build,” Schwartzburt said. “This show just leaves you with so many feelings. Every single person has a different experience and identity and will connect to these characters in a very different way.” 

Connection, a central element of the story, is what distinguishes the musical from other representations of similar themes. Bechdel’s memoir roots the queer experience in nuclear family dynamics, shifting the show’s statement from a general comment on the queer community to an exploration of its role in intimate, domestic settings.  

Individual expression, combined with self-exploratory themes, was central to the show’s musical direction as well. 

Violet Barnum ’25, the show’s musical director, wrote in an email to the News that “Fun Home” demanded a stronger focus on musical interpretation and expression than on complex harmonies. 

The solo and small group songs allowed her to “guide the actors on taking more time with a certain phrase” or to be “more intentional about dynamics,” she wrote. Barnum added that this role allowed her to appreciate the show from all its angles, drawing attention to the complex intersection of joy, sadness, queerness and family. 

By nature of the novel’s form, the musical is also defined by its focus on artistry and expression through visual details. This element was preserved in the show through background graphic design, as actors were planted within the pages of Bechdel’s comic strips.  

An intimacy of creation was continued in the show’s graphic design, as it was hand-drawn to resemble frames of Bechdel’s novel. Mia Kohn ’27 used ink and watercolor to emphasize the show’s emotional fluidity, as well as to visually convey themes presented in the narrative. This connection to the form was also reinforced by the Off-Broadway Theater’s size, where a 130-person occupancy limit created a proximity with the set that neared audience involvement. 

Sitting only feet away from the actors, audience members were asked to view the characters as individuals with deeply complex lives, not simply tools for a larger movement. This is a perspective that the music aspires to promote, creating a space where audiences can consider human connection. 

This was emphasized by the musical’s co-producer, Marissa Blum ’24, who commented on the work’s significance. 

“‘Fun Home’ really demonstrates the unique, intergenerational nature of the queer community. It captures both the nostalgia and the pain that older generations of queer people have felt through not being able to express their identity,” Blum said. “But it also shows how they’ve laid the groundwork for future … queer people to live and be proud. It is an opportunity to remember the people who’ve come before.”

The complete slate of producers, actors and contributors for Yale’s adaptation of “Fun Home” can be found online.