Newton Theatre Company (NTC) kicked off its fall production of the musical Fun Home at St. John’s Episcopal Church this past weekend. The crowd laughed, contemplated, and watched intently on Saturday night, the third performance of this production directed by Olivia Moriarty.
A year ago, Moriarty directed her first show for NTC. Melissa Bernstein, the Artistic Director, began brainstorming with Moriarty and other members of the team on what they would present for the next fall production. They weighed the possibility of a musical. Once they came upon Fun Home, there was no turning back.
“Everyone feels really passionately about this story and these people,” Moriarty said. “It’s been an incredible process.”
Cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, inspired the award-winning musical adaptation. The story follows Alison as she traverses memories of her childhood and young adulthood. Her father Bruce, played by Thain Bertin, was a funeral home director who was obsessed with restoring their old, gothic house. In college, as she comes out as a lesbian, Alison learns her father had been having affairs with young men in their town. Bruce died by suicide when Alison was 19.
As a director, Moriarty had to get creative with the actors to tell the story in the limited space of the church compared to a Broadway stage.
Actor Brit Garner plays Alison later in life as Alison processes what happened to her growing up. It’s a bit ironic that this is a musical, yet Alison in reality would dread singing in front of people. Garner told Fig City News that she approaches her role with care since this is a memoir and she is playing a real human being.
“The reality of this person and her life is very present in my mind,” Garner said.
“Brit and I have been true collaborators with figuring out this character,” Moriarty said.
Garner never leaves the stage, often reacting to the events along with the audience.
“Imagine someone working through something for an hour and a half,” she said.
Willow Cowin plays Alison as a kid. Her two brothers as kids are played by Elliot Sterns and Drew Carozza. Several in the cast and crew expressed to Fig City News awe in how talented and professional the three younger actors are for their age. Garner was also impressed by how Moriarty guided the child actors during the rehearsal period.
“I think they wiped the floor with the adults,” Moriarty said. Moriarty works as a full-time drama teacher at Bigelow Middle School.
Garner knew from day one that she was along for a great experience. She has acted in many plays and musicals over the years, and said that in every production, she brings her best effort and is never sure how others will show up in the “team sport” of theatre.
“Any anxiety was obliterated in the first moment of getting to work together,” she said. “It was just so clear that everyone not only cared, but had the technical ability on top of the emotional commitment to make things happen.”
Lisa Cron wrote the lyrics and Jeanine Tesori wrote the music for the musical adaptation. Alex Taylor, NTC’s music director for the show, finds the original score to be powerful. To prepare, Taylor listened to the original cast recording over and over again. He could do it in his sleep, he told Fig City News.
“Certain parts of the score are so sparsely scored, which gives a lot of room for the musician to make the expressive choice,” he said.
At times, Taylor adjusted aspects of the show – such as elongating or shortening certain transitions – to cater to the show’s resources at hand. He plays piano alongside a drummer and a guitarist. Taylor wears multiple hats, including Director of Operations.
“It was an awesome experience to have all these artists come together and create this show that resonates,” Taylor said. “We always strive to do shows that not only resonate with people, but are timely in a way.”
Moriarty invited people from all over her network to come out to the show. She shared an announcement for the show with an LGBTQ+ affinity group for teachers and received emails from people saying they were excited to check out the show.
“I hope that the queer community in the Newton, Boston area can find some peace, joy, and community space together,” she said. “That is something that we really need right now.”
Taylor noted that while some people who have seen the production before will be able to see it in a new light, others will be seeing it for the first time. He thinks either way will leave people pleased by the time of the final bows and applause. Taylor says that the second half of the show brings out “raw” emotional feelings for him, and he shared the production with his family who came for opening weekend.
Garner enjoys doing theatre in the Greater Boston area, where she has lived for only a couple of years. She says that each time she is cast in a production, she gets to know a novel place, and she is excited for friends who are coming to see the theatre scene in Newton. She hopes that some of her friends may be inspired to take part in the future, and that this production can provide people with more empathy for other people’s experiences.
“There’s no clear-cut heroes and villains,” she said. “When we do that reductive categorization, we are being unfair to the human experience.”
Sylva Goldman biked nine miles to see their friend Abby Jarcho, who plays college-age Alison, or Medium Alison, in the production. Goldman thought everyone did a terrific job, especially Jarcho.
“I loved the little moments of how they use the staging in the space to show thematic parallels,” Goldman told Fig City News.
Goldman was caught off guard by the tragic deconstruction of the father Bruce’s character throughout the musical.
“It made me think about my own relationships and how aspects of gender have changed since the penning of the comic,” Goldman said.
Fun Home will continue at St. John’s Episcopal Church (96 Otis Street, Newtonville) over the next two weekends: September 26-27 and October 3-4. Both evenings of opening weekend were sold out, and four of the six remaining shows are sold out. NTC advises people to get tickets as soon as possible, as only a limited number are available in the last two shows.
“If you’re going to buy tickets, buy them sooner rather than later,” Taylor said.
Tickets for the show are on NTC’s EventBrite page.
