Fun Home
by Jeanine Tesori and Lisa kron
First student-directed production
“Nina Goodheart ‘19, the director of Fun Home, said the LED panel was ‘indispensable’ to the production. ‘It has allowed us to achieve the fluidity and expressionism that are essential to memory plays like Fun Home,’ she said. ‘Beyond the simple logistics of allowing us to suggest set pieces we couldn’t afford on a college budget (such as the piano or a moving road), the LED floor was an important representation of the Bechdel house itself. On the outside, it seems perfectly normal – but within, it is crackling with energy and bursting with light.’”
Video footage from a tech rehearsal with the custom LED floor built for our production.
Directing the first all-student production of Fun Home was one of the highlights of my theater career thus far. With the blessing of composer Jeanine Tesori and the hard work of a team of almost sixty Yale students, we got to bring Alison Bechdel’s story to life. This interdisciplinary production featured an LED floor designed by Sydney Raine Garick as part of her senior project in Mechanical Engineering. Working with Sydney to develop the floor was an incredibly exciting experience and served as one more way to make our production of Fun Home unique. In addition, Jeanine Tesori visited the campus to lead a master class with the cast and attended the final performance. Getting the chance to bring together students from so many disciplines at Yale (Mechanical Engineering; Theater Studies; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; English; and more) and share our work with Jeanine and the larger Yale community was an incredibly rewarding opportunity.
PRODUCTION TEAM
Director: Nina Goodheart
Producer: Sydney Raine Garick
Music Director: Daniel Rudin
Stage Manager: Christina Figlus
Choreographer: Madi Cupp-Enyard
Lighting Designer: Evan Smith
Set and Props Designer: Adam Lessing
Costume Designer: Becca Young
Sound Designer and Engineer: Hayden Kline
Dramaturg: Emma Levine
Videographer: Matt Nadel
Reel editor: Zachary Elkind
CAST
Alison: Walker Caplan
Medium Alison: Camille Umoff
Small Alison: Clara Montgomery
Bruce: Simon Schaitkin
Helen: Cami Arboles
Joan: Ezra Levine
Roy: Sammy Grob
Christian: Tobiah Richkind
John: Oliver Shoulson
