Fun Home

Photo Credit: RDG Photography

Role: Associate Director

For Fun Home, I had the wonderful opportunity to assist Emma Maxfield (dir.). This collaboration left a lot of room for my ideas and opportunities to fully facilitate several rehearsals. Emma’s vision centered on reviving the original source material of Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home, particularly for the design elements. Emma was excited about my focus on kinetic arc, experience working with kids, and interest in stylization. I also recommended hiring cade beck as our Lighting Designer to help facilitate Emma’s vision.

Emma and I agreed that we were not interested in realism-based living room drama as the genre for the show, and wanted to depart from the Broadway concept by emphasizing instead the stylistic elements of the graphic novel as a memory play, composed of fragments of images that stand out more in memory.

She gave me the lead on choreographing the transitions between scenes/memories with the ensemble to emphasize the memory lens and Adult Al’s filter on the events she recalls as she draws. While Emma was gone for a few rehearsals leading up to tech, I stepped in to her role in the rehearsal room to polish and refine with the actors, scheduled a production meeting to re-unify the designers leading into tech, and lead our first tech rehearsal. Our space was also funky to work in—a sort of hybrid between proscenium and three-quarter thrust in a very long room with extreme sightlines and a mild rake in the house—and the team made some miracles happen to design and perform effectively in the space. I assisted Emma with sightlines and readjusting some of the blocking once we were able to space the show in the room.

This process felt extremely collaborative and rewarding. Emma did an incredible job of facilitating a warm and collaborative room and the actors felt comfortable expressing clear ideas on their characters’ arcs. I am incredibly proud of the entire group and how they have continued to grow the show after opening.