The glittering prizes keep coming for Fun Home, a mainstream musical about a young lesbian and her closeted gay father. Fun Home received 12, that’s right 12, Tony nominations, for Best Musical, Best Director (Sam Gold), Best Leading Actor (Michael Cerveris), Best Leading Actress (Beth Malone), Best Featured Actress (Judy Kuhn, Sydney Lucas, and Emily Skeggs), Best Book, (Lisa Kron), Best Score (Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron), Best Scenic Design (David Zinn), and Best Lighting Design (Ben Stanton). Seven of these nominations went to women. Alison Bechdel, who wrote the graphic novel upon which the musical is based, recently won a McArthur “genius” grant.
Fun Home was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, nine Lucille Lortel Awards (of which it won three), and seven Outer Critics Circle Awards. Actress Sydney Lucas, 10, became the youngest recipient in the history of the Obies.
Congratulations to all the nominees! Here are excerpts from what some of them told TheaterMania.
Sydney Lucas, Best Featured Actress in a Musical: “[F]irst we hear Judy [Kuhn] and we all scream! Then we hear me and we all scream! Then we hear Ruthie Ann [Miles] from The King and I and we all scream! Then we hear Emily Skeggs!”
Jeanine Tesori, Best Original Score: “It was bedlam. It was hilarious. [The cast] really worked together as a team, so the fact that they weren’t left out — [I]t means that they’re going to go to the theater and do a show knowing that they work as an ensemble. They all do that together. I’m just going to take a couple of hours and just be happy and grateful and then go back to work.”
Lisa Kron, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score: “I don’t have a TV so my partner Madeline and I were trying to stream it online. We were on the phone with Jeanine and she was watching on TV so we had a little bit of a delay. And Madeline and I were on different wireless networks so it was all happening in three different times. [laughs] It’s just completely thrilling.
Sam Gold, Best Director: “I watched Bruce Willis and Mary-Louise Parker from bed with my wife and 7-month-old. At one point right before a name was announced, the TV turned off. We looked over at our child who was holding the remote control with a devious grin.”
Judy Kuhn, Best Featured Actor in a Musical: “Oh my god, it’s unbelievable! It really is how you would write it in your dreams. It’s really great also because we are such a company. We really are a family so for the whole family to be acknowledged is really kind of amazing.”
Michael Cerveris, Best Leading Actor in a Musical: “To get to share this crazy and exhilarating and exhausting time with the people that I have spent so many crazy and exhilarating and exhausting times with already — that may be the most thrilling aspect of the whole thing to me.”
Beth Malone, Best Leading Actress in a Musical: (statement via publicist) “Wow wow wow!!! Ok what!? This is something that can happen to a person??
What a step forward for women and for the gay community!
Fun Home is playing at Circle in the Square – 235 West 50th Street, in New York City. For tickets, go to the box office, or call Telecharge at (212) 239-6200, or purchase them online.
The Tony Awards will be handed out on June 7th at Radio City Music Hall, and will be broadcast live on CBS.
[The marquis photo courtesy of Fun Home’s facebook page.]
