Pitt-Greensburg Theater Company to put on Musical, “Fun Home”

“Fun Home,” presented by Pitt-Greensburg’s Theater Company, is a memoir-based musical set to run April 11 through 13, with a matinee on April 14. The show kicks off in Ferguson Theater in Smith Hall at 8 p.m.

Working their fifth production at Pitt-Greensburg, Shianne Steck, a junior visual and performing arts major and writing and gender studies minor, is stage manager.

“I think for me, as an LGBT student, it’s really cool to see people like me represented on stage, so that’s huge,” Steck says. “But, I think there’s a lot in ‘Fun Home’ that anyone can connect with. It’s a very touching story.” 

“Fun Home,” the 2006 graphic novel-turned-musical by Alison Bechdel, is a coming-of-age story and the recipient of five Tony Awards. The graphic novel and its musical adaptation explore complex themes like suicide and gender and sexual identity, and the subject matter can, at times, become heavy. 

“You’ll be crying over one line, and the person next to you can be crying over something entirely different,” Steck says.

The cast and crew have been preparing for this production since January. In a first-time collaboration with the Director of Theater at Pitt-Greensburg Christina Allaback, Chris Bartley, musical director at Pitt-Greensburg, takes the lead of “Fun Home” from a musical standpoint.

“My hats off to this cast. They came in so excited and prepared. They made this such a joy and a pleasure, and they made it so much easier by being ready on day one,” Bartley says.

“Fun Home” features choreographed song-and-dance numbers that are as equally uplifting as they are tearjerking. Along with a choreographer, an intimacy coordinator was brought on board to help direct the more vulnerable moments on stage. 

“Fun Home” is a nuanced and impactful story following the lives of LGBT characters as they find their place in the world and come into their identities.

“This is an important musical,” Bartley says. “It is well done, it is well sung. We’ll really learn a lot from it, and we’ll really enjoy it, too.”