Oberlin’s production of Fun Home opened this Wednesday. Directed by Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater Katy Early, this Theater Mainstage production and Winter Term project marked the musical’s first appearance on an Oberlin stage.

Fun Home is a tremendously important musical for many theater students. Based on the 2006 graphic novel memoir by Alison Bechdel, OC ’81, Fun Home explores Bechdel’s discovery of her lesbian identity and her relationship with her closeted father, who commits suicide. Themes of queerness and scattered references to Bechdel’s experience at Oberlin have made this musical close to the hearts of many. 

Although there are students nowadays who can’t imagine a world without Fun Home, the musical only first opened off-Broadway in October 2013. Two years later, after positive reception, Fun Home made its Broadway debut in April 2015. Soon afterward, it won five Tony Awards and received a Grammy nomination. Early expressed excitement over how important Fun Home has become to the theater world in the past decade. 

“At one point in tablework, which are the early rehearsals in which we sit around a table and talk about the play, I asked the students when they first encountered Fun Home,” she said. “Most of them had seen the Tony broadcast from 2015, where Sydney [Lucas] sang the song, ‘Ring of Keys.’ … It was moving to me to know that all of these students had grown up with this.”

Three different-aged versions of Bechdel exist in Fun Home. Conservatory first-year Sara Nearenberg plays the youngest Bechdel in the Maple Avenue cast. They were thrilled for this to be their first production at Oberlin.

“It’s so fun doing a show that is based on something real because it’s even more special,” they said. “I want to do everything justice. The cast really cared a lot about what we were representing and what we knew about Alison Bechdel [and] her life.”

Oberlin’s Fun Home team conducted in-depth research on the story that extended beyond tablework and reading the graphic memoir. They dug through archives and talked with an archivist alum about Oberlin’s queer history in relation to Fun Home. Early also spoke with previous directors of the musical, including the director and actor Sam Gold, to gain insight into key elements of Bechdel’s story. 

“There’s always a risk when we put queer suffering on stage that it becomes another story about a queer person who experienced trauma,” Early said. “I am hoping that our production can be on the side of honoring and telling the truth about that pain but also showing the big joy.”

Fun Home was often emotionally difficult for the cast. To address this, they worked with their intimacy coordinator, frequently taking breaks after scenes and shows to care for themselves. 

“When there are joyful scenes and upbeat scenes, we love to embrace those,” Nearenberg said. “We’re all very in tune with each other and how we’re doing. … When people are sobbing after watching a cast do the last three numbers of the show, we take time to hug it out.”

A pinnacle moment of joy in Fun Home occurs in the song “Ring of Keys,” when young Alison encounters a butch woman at her door. Witnessing how comfortable this woman is existing outside gender expectations was a fundamental moment for her. College fourth-year Rachel Giordano Wilson, who plays Alison’s mother in the Maple Avenue cast, expressed excitement about the audience getting to watch this scene. 

“A lot of people will be able to relate to that experience of understanding yourself, that experience of seeing a queer person and realizing, ‘That could be my future,’” Wilson said. “What a bright future that is, to be able to live as myself.”

Although Bechdel was able to live her life as a queer person, her father was not. As Early directed the show, she often contemplated the differences between Bechdel’s generation and her father’s. 

“There’s something at the heart of the show about this intergenerational experience of queerness,” Early explained. “Because we’re all watching this story unfold in a theater, we have to grapple with how society is implicated. Why was her father not able to come out and she was?”

Fun Home was the labor of many different Oberlin artists beyond Bechdel. Phillip Himberg, OC ’74, helped produce many early workshops of the piece, and Judy Kuhn, OC ’81, starred in the original cast of Fun Home. To Nearenberg and many others, its debut at Oberlin signifies a critical full-circle moment.

“I feel like this is a historic moment because I’m doing Fun Home at Alison Bechdel’s alma mater, and this is the first time that we’re doing it,” Nearenberg said.

Fun Home performs through this Sunday. Although all tickets are sold out, Early encourages students to get on the waitlist for a chance to see it.