Fun Home photos by Joan Marcus. Fun Home plays in Morsani Hall Nov. 28 – Dec. 3.
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IM: The songs in the musical are fantastic. We
love “Ring of Keys” and “Changing My Major.”
Do you listen to the cast recording as you work,
or do you consider the musical version something
that belongs to Lisa and Jeanine and you leave it
alone?
AB: I feel both of those things. Clearly, the musical
is their creation; it belongs to them. I didn’t have
anything to do with making it beyond writing the
book. But I do love the musical, the soundtrack. I
temporarily can’t listen to it … you know, you reach
a certain point and you just have to step away.
IM: You’ve reached your super-saturation
point?
AB: Yeah, but I listened to it like a million
times before I reached that saturation point.
And, I listened to so many versions of the
songs. There were so many beautiful songs
that got cut along the way.
IM: Lisa and Janine seem to be as powerful
in their milieus as you are in yours. They seem
to be the exact right team to have turned your
memoir into a musical. One of the great
successes of the show is that homosexuality
is treated as just a place you come from, like
the Midwest. No morality, no agenda. It just
is. What do you make of Lisa and Jeanine’s
achievement with your text?
AB: Yeah … I feel that part of it is we’re
all the same basic age, the same generation.
Lisa and I grew up as part of that movement
that was making that change regarding
homosexuality happen. So, part of it is
that’s where we all came from. I also feel
like what made their adaptation so spot on
was that they were willing to approach the
whole project fresh. They completely made it
their own by going through a lot of the same
processes I had to go through to tell the story
in the fi rst place. To be open to the material,
to not make a foregone conclusion as to how
it’s supposed to be. They could hold it but
not impose a shape on it. That’s part of what
took so long developing the musical.
IM: We can’t wait for the show to get here.
We’re really excited for our community to
see it. Is there anything that you would like
to say to an audience member who may not
be familiar with you or with your work but
who likes musicals and is going to be in the
audience?
AB One thing I would say is … I don’t want
to step on anyone’s experience of the play
before they see it. But, I do want to assure
people that this play is about a funeral home,
a family that is, in some ways, unhappy,
and even though there’s a suicide in it …
somehow, it manages to be a very uplifting
and often very funny play.