Lane Dixon hikes up his pants during dress rehearsals for Fun Home Monday afternoon inside the Phillip Wickstrom Studio Theatre at Centralia College.
From left to right, Shea Bolton, Nick Hall, and Daisy Bower perform on stage during dress rehearsals for Fun Home Monday afternoon inside the Phillip Wickstrom Studio Theatre at Centralia College.
Daisy Bower playing Mrs. Bochner adjusts actress Zoey Matthew's hair during dress rehearsals for Fun Home Monday afternoon inside the Phillip Wickstrom Studio Theatre at Centralia College.
Nick Hall, center, performs on stage during dress rehearsals for Fun Home Monday afternoon inside the Phillip Wickstrom Studio Theatre at Centralia College.
Isaac Wulff plays Bruce Bechdel during dress rehearsals for Fun Home Monday afternoon inside the Phillip Wickstrom Studio Theatre at Centralia College.
Shea Bolton, background, and Daisy Bower, foreground, perform on stage during dress rehearsals for Fun Home Monday afternoon inside the Phillip Wickstrom Studio Theatre at Centralia College.
Zoey Matthew dances during dress rehearsals for Fun Home Monday afternoon inside the Phillip Wickstrom Studio Theatre at Centralia College.
Lane Dixon blows a bubble of gum during dress rehearsals for Fun Home Monday afternoon inside the Phillip Wickstrom Studio Theatre at Centralia College.
Daisy Bower, playing Mrs. Bochner, takes a photo with a vintage camera during dress rehearsals for Fun Home Monday afternoon inside the Phillip Wickstrom Studio Theatre at Centralia College.
“Fun Home” is the first Broadway musical with a lesbian protagonist.
It’s also a story about growing up: And a story about families; and a story about fathers and daughters; and a story about trying to figure out just who you are in this world. Beyond the sexuality of the main character, it is a story that almost everyone can relate to.
“Fun Home” will open Friday and play through Feb. 9 in the Wickstrom Studio Theatre on the Centralia College Campus. Adapted from a graphic novel of the same title, “Fun Home” is a coming of age story about a girl named Alison Bechdel (portrayed by Heather Matthews, Shea Bolton and Emily Cole), who is questioning her sexuality. The musical takes us through three stages of her life as she struggles to discover who she is as well as learns some secrets about her childhood, including her father Bruce Bechdel (portrayed by Isaac Wulff) and his own sexual identity. Theater professor Emmy Kreilkamp said she has been hoping to produce “Fun Home” for quite some time because it tells an important story about sexual identity.
“It takes a really serious subject, that of a young woman starting to understand her sexuality, and her father who is questioning his own sexuality, and adds full-on funny numbers and beautiful ballads,” Kreilkamp said.
The Centralia College production of “Fun Home” will be guest directed by Andrew Start, an adjunct drama professor at Centralia College who has served as the dialect coach for productions at Centralia College since 2018. Start has also co-directed the summer theater program at Centralia College with Kreilkamp. Start has a history in theatre that goes back to the age of 8, including studying acting at Rutgers and working in theater in New York for 12 years. He said when Kreilkamp proposed the show with him as director, he read through it and instantly felt a connection.
“I’m a father and I’m queer and even though this story is very different from my own, it’s a story that’s not told a lot,” Start said. “When I tell people I have a daughter, they’re usually very surprised.”
Kreilkamp, who will portray Alison’s mother, Helen Bechdel, in “Fun Home”, directed “Red” in the fall and will direct “Into the Woods” this spring in Corbet. She said having guest directors fits perfectly into the educational aspect of the Centralia College drama department.
“I think it’s good for the students to learn from different directors. Different directors have different styles and different ways of doing things,” Kreilkamp said. “It’s also been a good experience for me to relive all the steps of acting first-hand.”
The subject matter of “Fun Home” presented a few challenges for the production. Start said they did have a few young performers who said ‘no’ to roles based on their religious beliefs. Playing the adult version of Alison, Matthews, who previously portrayed the same role last year at South Puget Sound Community College, said the role appealed to her because she could really relate to Alison’s life.
“I think it’s a really important story. I grew up in a really conservative area of the South and I grew up queer and went through a lot of the same stuff Alison goes through,” Matthews said. “There’s also this theme of being able to live authentically and that each generation can kind of undo the pain of the past that’s important as well.”
Beyond the issues of sexuality, “Fun Home” is truly a coming of age story, said Cole, who portrays middle school aged Alison and said she sees universal themes of the pain of growing up in the show.
“I can definitely relate to how Alison wants to find out who she is and to find someone she can relate to,” Cole said.
Beyond sexuality, “Fun Home” is also a story about family, Matthews noted.
“I think everybody goes through a period of understanding their parents better when they become an adult,” Matthews said. “I think it’s really universal, no matter what your sexuality, that nobody really knows who their parents are until they grow up.”
The Wickstrom Studio Theatre was chosen for Centralia College’s “Fun Home” because of the more intimate feel of the space, Kreilkamp said. She noted that musicals are usually staged in Corbet, as “Into the Woods” will be in the spring, but she wanted the audience to feel connected to the characters in the smaller space with “Fun Home.” Start said he feels audience members will love the development of each of the characters in the small cast and will probably find someone in the show with which they can relate.
“The story is well crafted, the songs are at times absolutely beautiful and at times really fun and the character arc is really powerful,” Start said of the show.
“Fun Home” contains strong language, sexual situations and themes of self-harm of which parents of young theatre-goers should be aware.
