Cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic has been acclaimed far and wide; it’s been serialized in a leading French newspaper and translated into a slew of languages. Now, says the Bolton author, her tale of growing up with a closeted dad who ran a funeral home is being prepared for the stage.
Fun Home was optioned for Broadway a few years ago and has been “in development all that time,” says Bechdel. Recently, she “finally saw a first draft of the play and heard some of the music,” both authored by “really fancy, Broadway-caliber people.”
Indeed: Fun Home’s book is by Lisa Kron, Tony-nominated author of the autobiographical plays Well and 2.5 Minute Ride. Jeanine Tesori, a theater and film composer who won a 2004 Drama Desk Award for her score for Tony Kushner’s Caroline, or Change, is contributing the music.
Sounds like a good matchup. “They’ve done an astonishing job with my graphic novel,” says Bechdel, “which I thought was impossible to turn into anything but a graphic novel.”
This article appears in Jan 12-18, 2011.
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