Fun Home, a musical based on the best-selling graphics memoir by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, swept the 2015 Tony Awards last night in an unexpected and history-making move, usurping more traditional song-and-dance fare like contender An American in Paris.
Emotionally complex and entirely riveting, Fun Home examines Bechdel's relationship with her father, Bruce Bechdel, a funeral parlor director who was a closeted homosexual and carried out secret affairs with younger men during the course of her upbringing. Juxtaposed with this is the story of Bechdel's realization of her homosexuality, as well as the aftermath of Bruce's suicide four months after her coming out during her college years.
Nominated for 12 awards, Fun Home took home five, including Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical - the first time a female writing composer duo (Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori) has ever won - and for Best Musical.
Developed over the course of several years, Fun Home premiered at the Public Theater in September 2013, making its move to Broadway's Circle in the Square Theater earlier this year in March.
Although Fun Home is not the first musical to be based on a graphic novel or comic strip (Annie, The Addams Family, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark are some other well-known examples), it is the first to ever feature a lesbian as the leading character, paving a way for more diversity and representation on Broadway.
Alison Bechdel is also known for her serialized comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, which ran from 1983-2008, and for creating the Bechdel test, a set of criteria that measures gender bias in media.
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