"Fun Home" Wrecked Me In The Best Way

Eclipse Theatre Collective x Theatre Tulsa: Fun Home
Theatre Tulsa Studios
June 4, 2026

Fun Home came at a critical moment in my life. It was fall of 2016, my sophomore year of college and a little more than a year after the musical won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. After taking a seminar on postmodern musical films the previous spring, I made a point to listen to the soundtracks of other contemporary musicals and then queued up the Fun Home score for my six-hour drive from Tulsa to St. Louis for Thanksgiving break. 

I wasn’t expecting to hear something that would feel so … personal. Like Alison Bechdel, who’s both the main character of the musical and the author of the graphic novel and memoir it’s based on, I wasn’t entirely comfortable sharing my interior emotional world in those years (or even writing about it, as my diaries would show). But I didn’t really understand why I was bawling when “Telephone Wire” played through the winding stretch of I-44 between Springfield and Rolla. I just knew Jeanine Tesori’s music and Lisa Kron’s lyrics had tapped into a locked-away part of my psyche and gently asked (as in a line from another of the musical’s songs) “Do you hear my heart saying hi?” 

So when Eclipse Theatre Collective announced it was bringing Fun Home back to Tulsa, it quickly rose to the top of my “must see” list for the season. On its own, the material is strong, and under the specific direction of Meagan Mulgrew and Jordan Andrews’ musical prowess, this production of Fun Home soars. 

Fun Home is a one-act musical in which Bechdel (famously the creator of the Bechdel Test) revisits memories from her youth and first year of college during the ‘70s and ‘80s in an attempt to compose her graphic novel/memoir. These memories swirl across time and place, circulating around her discovery of her sexuality, questions pertaining to her father Bruce’s sexuality, and the air-tight, stifled household she grew up in. Much of this strain is attributed to Bruce, who tries to keep up appearances that he is the patriarch of a normal American family, as symbolized through a pristinely curated, museum-like house that he renovated with high-quality antique items. Throughout the musical, as we see different versions of Alison from youth to adulthood, this “fun home” facade cracks and crumbles until he reaches a breaking point. 

Mulgrew takes this story and turns it inward, making the audience feel equally trapped inside Alison’s mind. While this production’s stripped down set and single square of wallpaper don’t quite capture the grand museum that is the Bechdel family home, Nicholas Mueller’s utilitarian design emphasizes Alison’s frequently expressed struggle to recollect specificity. Between scenes, pieces of furniture like a desk, a love seat, and a piano rotated around the thrust set as the story floated from memory to memory (major props to the cast for orchestrating these specific and tight changes). A few creative lighting decisions by Chris Porcelli added to this effect, like a bubbling twinkle during the show’s first scene change in “Welcome to Our House on Maple Avenue.” Even the decision to have the songs backed live solely by Andrews’ skilled piano playing worked to this end.

One of Mulgrew’s strengths as a director is character crafting, which made for a stellar lineup of performances when I watched the final dress rehearsal last Thursday. The Bechdel kids (Connor Smith, Milo Turner, and Rowan Butler) brought high energy in their playful rendition of “Come to the Fun Home.” Butler specifically strode into her big part as Small Alison with an impressive command and keen intuition. 

While Ashe Baileigh’s Joan (Alison’s first girlfriend) visually didn’t represent the antithesis to the carefully curated Bechdel house and family that the text calls for, she moved with the charismatic comfort that makes the character so alluring. Her energetic rapport with her castmates enlivened every scene, and the way she held Medium Alison’s anxiety with empathetic eyes and tender touches brought something refreshingly human to the character. 

Allison Porcelli gave a fully embodied, straight-to-the-gut performance—tightly wound, hunched over, and stutteringly unsure—as Medium Alison. Brilliantly paired with Baileigh, Porcelli earned every nervous pause, every rambling freak out, every exuberant bellow of “I’m changing my major to Joan!” When she was on stage, I could not look away. 

John Burns’ Bruce is a man lost in his own mind, distant both mentally and emotionally. While he didn’t capture Bruce’s tense bite, Burns' acting choices made the moments he did connect—a lively phone conversation about philosophy with Medium Alison, a knowing smile at Small Alison during “Ring of Keys,” or an almost giddy conversation with Roy, the Bechdel family’s babysitter and one of the young men Bruce pursues (played by Tennesse Suiter)—all the more tragic. 

Burns’ take on Bruce also mimics Jenn Liebig’s performance as (grown-up) Alison, who doesn’t so much guide the audience through her memories as wade through them with us, connecting scene to scene with searching observations and mumbling mutterings to herself. Throughout the show, my eyes would often drift to Liebig, curious as to how she would react to vulnerable moments of Alison’s past. Her soft nod to her college-aged self when she questioned if she was a “real lesbian” was so full of gentle understanding that it made me misty. 

Underscoring all of this was Jennifer White as Alison’s mom, Helen, who holds the tension in this story by masterfully compartmentalizing her own unresolved conflicts, anger, and grief. Whether she was walking across the stage with a laundry basket or sitting (literally) right next to me playing the piano, palpable tension radiated off of her. Her solo “Days and Days” was technically flawless until the very end when the rubber band snapped and both her voice and my heart broke. 

It’s been nearly 10 years since I first encountered Fun Home. Since then, I’ve listened to the soundtrack countless times, read the graphic novel twice, participated in a directing workshop that analyzed the script, and have now seen the fully staged musical. Every time I revisit this story, I notice something new—a new side to one of the complex characters, a line that strikes a deeper chord, a layer to the narrative structure that allows me to see a situation differently. It pulls old memories from the ether of my mind and I’m able to both see myself and my own story a little more clearly. That’s the brilliance of this story, and this specific collaboration between Eclipse and Theatre Tulsa does a good job bringing it to life. 

Add the fact that it’s the first mainstream musical to feature a lesbian protagonist and how could you not want to celebrate Pride Month by purchasing a ticket? Who knows! You might learn something about yourself too. Just bring tissues.

Fun Home is back at Theatre Tulsa Studios this weekend with Chris Porcelli as Bruce and Brady Claire Higgins as Small Alison for the remainder of the run (through June 14). You can catch Amanda Nichols as Helen during Saturday’s matinee and Prudence Lloyd as Joan for the shows Saturday and Sunday.