Sitting at the edge of our seats, FUN HOME brought Alice Bechdel’s novel to life. A major jolt to her gloomy feeling memoir, FUN HOME the musical gave her tale a breath of fresh air. Although the play deviated from the book plot wise in many instances, I felt that the musical was well written and well directed. From songs about becoming a lesbian (Changing my Major to Joan) to their house on Maple Avenue, this musical captured it all while still maintaining the strong coming of age themes and “finding one’s self” that were expressed in the graphic novel. The play focuses in on three points in Alice’s life: her childhood, her college years, and adulthood. I was greatly impressed by the three actors who played Alice. As each of them represented one of the three stages in Alice’s life you can really see Alice’s development throughout those stages. I was also impressed with the actors who played Alice’s parents, Helen and Bruce. As the play progresses, the struggle of Bruce trying to do what’s best for his family while maintaining his secret life and Helen coping with the idea can be clearly seen through the actor’s performance. In my opinion I felt that reading the book beforehand somewhat dulled the experience of watching the play. The reason being was that we already had a general concept of what was going to happen in the play versus going in blind and viewing it for the first time. Nonetheless, the musical gives a fresh twist to the somewhat depressing novel and kept us on our toes the entire time. I can only hope that this musical ends up on Broadway one day so we can all say that we saw it first! Haha