Alison is 9, begging her father to play with her. She is 19, overcome by the aching and joyous pain of first love. She is 43, an out lesbian hunting for the truth of her brilliant, volatile, and closeted father’s life and death. She is all three at once, trying to untangle the central mystery of her childhood: How did she survive their shared hometown, when her father could not? With a score that ranges from exuberant 70s pop to aching melodies and dissonant harmonies of characters longing to be known, Fun Home is the Tony Award-winning story of a daughter and father, of coming out and coming to terms with a life shaped by a family’s secrets.
Jeanine Tesori is a composer of musical theatre, opera, television and film. She won the Tony Award for Best Score (with book writer & lyricist Lisa Kron) for the musical Fun Home in 2015. Her other musicals include Caroline, or Change (with Tony Kushner); Shrek The Musical (with David Lindsay-Abaire); Thoroughly Modern Millie (with Dick Scanlan); Violet (with Brian Crawley); and Soft Power (with David Henry Hwang) which was her second work, after Fun Home, to be a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Her latest opera Blue (libretto by Tazewell Thompson) received the Music Critics Association of North America Award for Best New Opera. Along with Missy Mazzoli, she is one of the first women to be commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. In addition to her work as a composer, Jeanine is the founding Artistic Director of New York City Center’s Encores! Off-Center series, was the Supervising Vocal Producer for Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, and is a lecturer in music at the Yale School of Drama. Her latest musical Kimberly Akimbo will open on Broadway in Fall 2022.
(As of June 2022)
Lisa Kron wrote the book and lyrics for the musical Fun Home, with music by composer Jeanine Tesori, which won five Tony Awards in 2015 including Best Book, Best Score, and Best Musical, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Lisa’s other plays include In the Wake, Well, and the Obie Award-winning 2.5 Minute Ride. As an actor, she received a Tony Award nomination for her performance in Well and a Lucille Lortel Award for her turn in the Foundry Theatre’s acclaimed production of Good Person of Szechuan. She is the recipient of Guggenheim, Sundance, and MacDowell fellowships; a Doris Duke Performing Artists Award; a CalArts Herb Alpert Award; a Helen Merrill Award; the Kleban Prize for libretto writing; and grants from Creative Capital and New York Foundation for the Arts. Lisa is also a founding member of the Obie and Bessie Award-winning collaborative theatre company The Five Lesbian Brothers. Since 2010, she has served on the Council of Dramatists Guild of America. During the 2020-2021 season, Studio digitally produced her play 2.5 Minute Ride.
(As of June 2022)
David Muse is in his thirteenth season as Artistic Director of Studio Theatre, where he has directed Cock (the in-person and digital productions), The Children, The Remains, The Effect, The Father, Constellations, Chimerica, Murder Ballad, Belleville, Tribes, The Real Thing, An Iliad, Dirt, Bachelorette, The Habit of Art, Venus in Fur, Circle Mirror Transformation, reasons to be pretty, Blackbird, Frozen, and The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow. As Studio’s Artistic Director, he has produced 109 productions; established Studio R&D, its new work incubator; significantly increased artist compensation; created The Cabinet, an artist advisory board; and overseen Open Studio, a $20M expansion and upgrade of Studio’s four-theatre complex. Previously, he was Associate Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company, where he has directed nine productions, including Richard III, Henry V, Coriolanus, and King Charles III (a co-production with American Conservatory Theater and Seattle Rep). Other directing projects include Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune at Arena Stage, The Bluest Eye at Theatre Alliance, and Patrick Page's Swansong at the New York Summer Play Festival. He has helped to develop new work at numerous theatres, including New York Theatre Workshop, Geva Theatre Center, Arena Stage, New Dramatists, and The Kennedy Center. David has taught acting and directing at Georgetown, Yale, and the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy of Classical Acting. A nine-time Helen Hayes Award nominee for Outstanding Direction, he is a recipient of the DC Mayor’s Arts Award for Outstanding Emerging Artist and the National Theatre Conference Emerging Artist Award. David is a graduate of Yale University and the Yale School of Drama.
(As of June 2022)