Up next in 10
Look Back At FUN HOME's Opening Night
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Oct 29, 2022
It's time to come to the Fun Home! As BroadwayWord previously reported, Academy Award-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal will produce an upcoming big screen adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical Fun Home, where he will also portray Bruce Bechdel. To celebrate and get ready to head back to Maple Avenue, we're looking back at the show's Broadway opening night. Check out the video to get a peek at Michael Cerveris, Judy Kuhn, Beth Malone, and more on the big night!
View Video Transcript
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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Following a sold-out run at the public theater, the Janine Tissori and Lisa Crone musical Fun Home
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which is directed by Sam Gold, has come to Broadway's Circle in a Square Theater
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And we're here on opening night to celebrate with the company, led by Michael Cerberus and Judy Cune
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I want to play airplane. I want to play airplane. I want to play airplane
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I want to put my arms out and fly. Like the Red Baron and his softest camel
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No wait. Like Superman, up in the sky. You like and see all of Pennsylvania
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It's opening night on Broadway. How do you feel? I feel just deliriously happy and unusually relaxed
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What has this whole experience been like working on this show and revisiting and reinventing for Broadway
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Well, you know, it's really interesting because Cherry Jones had come to see our show a lot down to the public
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And I saw her tonight on the front row at the bows, and it was just like the perfect kind of closure moment
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She had said, because I was a little nervous about, I wanted to just move right away if we possibly could
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And I was afraid that the time in between would, you know, we'd lose momentum or we'd lose that, you know, that mojo
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And she said, I know what you mean, but she had just had the experience of doing Glass Menagerie up in Boston and had brought it down to Broadway
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and she said, trust me, you will be grateful for the time
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and it will, without you even trying, it will marinate in the back of your mind and your cells
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and it will, you'll be glad that there was time, and it will not feel tiring
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And, sorry. And then Roberta Collinger's walks by, and you just forget about everything else
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And working on this piece, I mean, this is such a groundbreaking musical
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working with Janine and Lisa on this and Sam? Well, I can't think of three people
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I would rather be guided by and led by and challenged by
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Janine and I have known each other from my first Broadway show. And so I feel like we're kind of like artistic soulmates from a long time
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I mean, you know, we were drinking German beer together. in Offenbach, Germany, doing Tommy
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So there's really no greater bond. Lisa, I feel, you know, writes your mind before you can even think it
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And Sam, Sam is someone, I, as a director and a man that I will just trust completely with anything that I hold dear
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And I hold this show very, very dear. Michael, when you took your bow tonight, do you remember what you were thinking
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I was thinking that I loved these people that I'm standing on stage with so much
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and that if it all ended, you know, today, it would have been the only place I wanted to be
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Begin. Peeling plaster, sagging roof, two missing stairs, a buckle the wall
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I'm fired up to do this, but on my own, oh, so much damaged, broken windows
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pipes are ship, crap, finere. It's hours later, Jesus, I'm still standing
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What has the whole process been like for you with reinventing this for Broadway? Well, I follow Sam Gold's lead. Sam said I want to do it in the round. And so I thought, I actually googled musicals in the round. I googled it because I didn't know what the hell it was. I have only seen one musical in the round. It was Zorba at the Westbury Music Fair. I was there. I loved it. And that was one was that, the 80s
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No, 70s. Oh. So it 70s, that was it? Yeah. So I've never done. So I didn't know. And so I don't
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And so I literally had to go in and do a little bit of research on what that meant for the piece
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And I'm like a lemming with Sam Gold. He walks off the cliff, out I go
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Yeah, yeah. The whole process of working on this for Broadway, what's it meant to you
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The process going back into rehearsal again, tell me. You know, we did a really great thing on this
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We split it up, which I've never been able to do. there is a thing that happens
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and I think it's very common in a show that the first two weeks are great and then the third week everybody gets cranky
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and sick of each other and it wears off and then you really have to go to work. We did two weeks in December
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where Sam restaged in the round and then we took a giant
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break and then started again in March and that was great because they got used to
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this new configuration but then our third week had the energy of a first week. It was really
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great and we rehearsed in a church the last time I was in this church
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was when a friend of mine who had died of AIDS in 1992
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I was there for his memorial and the next time was to do fun home. Isn't that
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great creative synergy? Unbelievable. Because you know he was in that room with you. It was so many, you know I burst
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into tears when I walked in the first time. Just working on this
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piece. I know this is such a groundbreaking musical and just collaborated with Lisa and Sam on this and Alice, what it's meant to you and just working on
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You know, everybody's, it reminds me of, in a way, being on the PGA tour. Not that I've ever
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done that, but, you know, you look to your left and you look to your right, and you think
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oh my God, this is a group of great artists. This is the Algonquin Roundtable at a musical
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theater. Everybody's bringing it. I want to bring it. So it's the greatest form of
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competition, which is when you want to be better than the last thing that you did. I don't want to
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be better than them. I want to be the best version of myself what I bring in. And that's been
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completely joyous. And Sam runs a really good room. He's calm and focused and clear
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Congratulations. It's Broadway with Fun Home. How do you feel? Stunned, happy, yeah
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You know, we spoke during rehearsals for Broadway. You guys all reinvented this for Broadway with Sam. I mean
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Who would have thought that you would have gone from a proscenium? Like, let's go to Broadway. Let's do it in the round
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I know. Well, it's wild. It's so intimate. The furthest seat away is like a house seat in a proscenium house
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I mean, you're so, wherever you are, you're so close. It's so intimate. It's really, really great
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You know, I was talking to Janine, for us as an audience, and I'm sure for you, there's energy coming from every direction as opposed to just going out into a house and coming back
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I know. It's incredible. And you know it was really exciting and fun and like a master class to watch Sam and the designers reconceived that for that configuration And so much clarity you know so much I don know
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the storytelling in the staging and in the set, you know, the set and the lights, they're like dramaturgical
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It's really satisfying for me. Talk about working on this piece, collaborating with Janine
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what that is all meant to of bringing, you know, fruition of Broadway tonight with Fun Home
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I mean, I think people do theater because you make it together because there's no part that can exist independently
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I think people who do community theater, people who do high school theater
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that feeling of the interdependence of that creative process is why people do it
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And this is that experience with the greatest artists, you know? And I think the kind of openness and generosity that people had
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and willingness to not know something. And, you know, there were many, many, many times
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through this whole process where we did not know how to make something work
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and I think everybody in the room was willing to say I don't actually know
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and then somebody would say well can we try it this way and everybody would say okay yeah let's look at it
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and that willingness to not know and to try whatever for nobody to ever say
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without looking at something that's a bad idea I mean it was just an incredible great
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collaboration you can see that you can see that with the piece
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and just tonight when you took your bow with the cast. Remember what you were thinking
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I mean, I just love them so much. And eight people in our cast
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tonight was their first opening night on Broadway. We have eight people who've never been on
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Broadway before. That's so moving to us. Our beautiful children who are in the cast, you know
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and they're just Judy Kuhn told me the two boys are behind her when they come out for their
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curtain call every night. And she said if she doesn't walk fast enough, she can feel them bumping up against her because they're so excited to get on stage and take their bows
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You know, it's, you know, from Michael who's been on Broadway ten times, and Judy also was a legend, and, you know, I mean, I don't know
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We're just very lucky. Everybody is just crazy about each other. My dad and I were exactly alike
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I see everything captioned. My dad and I were nothing alike. Maps show you what is simple and true
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Try laying out a bird's eye view. Not what he told you, just what you see
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What do you know that's not your dad's mythology? I love this
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Isn't it fantastic? I feel so badass. I bet you could just move in that so freely
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Hey, what's up? Yeah, oh yeah, that's cool. I was going like this early. I borrowed someone's sunglasses and I was like
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or I was like this. The president is moving. The president is moving
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I'm like living out all my fantasies. Just this whole experience, what it has meant to you working on Fun Home
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Well, okay. It's meant, I yet bear it. It has been my life's work
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No matter what else I've been doing in the last three years, I've always had a piece of my mind working on the puzzle of Fun Home
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working on the world of Fun Home, and the character of Allison, she's been with me for the last three years
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years and I am always I follow Allison's blog and you know my wife will come in the room and
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she'll be like what are you doing I'm like just reading Allison's blog and just like keeping up with her and and just keeping even when I'm not working on it I keep one foot in
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Beach Creek you know and that is that is something um because it's a tough nut to crack
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because it hasn't been fully realized until now, until this version of it, it's like
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what is it, what essentially am I doing, and how do you play it
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How do you find playable things within that? So as an actor, it's been a very galvanizing journey because I've had to really, really knuckle down
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and find ways to play things that aren't on the page necessarily but are happening
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You know, there's a lot happening in my life in this hour and a half on the stage that I don't have, like, text to go with
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You know, the song, Maps, there's a lot going on within that song
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So I spend a lot of time in my head. I spend a lot of time on the page
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I journal incessantly about what essentially is happening during Maps and what the journey is and where's the turning point
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And, you know, it's been a puzzle, like a glorious puzzle that your mind just keeps working on for years
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Welcome back to Broadway. What a way to return. Oh, I know
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I feel so lucky. I can't imagine doing anything else right now
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What has this whole journey been like for you, Judy, with working on Fun Home? I have to say it's been one of the best experiences of my working life
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I mean, first of all, I love all the... collaborators, Lisa Crone, Janine DeSori, Sam Gold, all the designers. They're incredible people
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They're great artists. They were so collaborative. I don't think I've ever been involved in
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something from such an early stage. I mean, I really did one of the very first readings when the show
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was in its infancy. And so I feel like I got to be a part of the growth of this piece
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And, I mean, it really went through a lot in the last three and a half years. And it's just
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was very exciting process to be a part of, and I'm passionate about the material
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It's been reinvented every time I've seen it. Now you're in the round. I mean, is that
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exciting for you? Really exciting. I mean, Sam is quite an extraordinary director, and I'm told
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it was his idea, and that he said, you know, if we're going to pick this up and move this uptown
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let's rethink it. Let's rethink what's the best way to do this. And it was his idea to
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He said, let's look at circle and the square. I think it should be in the round
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And he was absolutely right. I mean, it's really extraordinary how it transforms the piece
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and it's so great for all the storytelling. You know, for us, it's like we're sitting in your house with you
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like that other person sitting, observing what's happening. I know. Well, I mean, when has it ever happened that you take a piece
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from a small, intimate, off-Broadway theater, move it to Broadway, and it feels more intimate
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That's amazing. That's amazing. And working with this cast. I love every single one of them
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Every single one of them. I mean, I was talking to some of them before the show
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and we were saying how, you know, every show, there's always something that, you know
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you wish you could change about. There's nothing about this experience. I would change
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Not a person, not a note, not a word, nothing about it that I would change
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And how this show touches audiences? It's really extraordinary. I mean, you look out there at the curtain call, and everyone's on their feet
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and you see people of every age gender sexual orientation race wiping tears away and smiling and applauding and it really has a profound effect on people My final question is when you took your bow tonight on Broadway in the show Do you remember what you were thinking
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I just felt overwhelmed. I just so happy that we were here, and we're in this space and that people are just embracing the show
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And I was so happy to be sharing the stage with everyone. And then when Sam and Lee
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and Janine and Allison and all the design. Everybody came out on stage with us
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It really was a very special moment. Your swagger and your bearing at the just right clothes
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you're wearing your short hair and your dungarees and your lace of boots
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And your keys, oh, your ring of keys. I know you
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I know you. I know you. You look gorgeous. Thank you
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It is opening night. It is your Broadway debut. How do you feel? How would you feel when you've wanted to be on Broadway ever since you were born
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And at age 11, you finally fulfilled your dream. that's how I feel
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It is a dream come true. And to be in this show, to be a part of Fun Home, what it means to you
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I think the story needs to be heard because some people don't let people be who they are
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And by holding them in and by not letting them be who they are
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It could end up very sad. Singing this beautiful score. Tell me about that
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Singing the songs. Oh, sing, oh. Well, all of the songs in the show are my favorites, I think
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I think if I had to pick three songs that are not only amazing to listen to, but amazing to perform
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I definitely like come to the fun home. Who wouldn't? I love Ring of Keys and I love days and days how Judy performs that
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And of course, telephone wire. It makes me cry. Like the whole show does, right
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The whole show makes me cry. Last Tuesday we went through a little read-through of the show
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And we hadn't been able to do that in a while. like actually get to see each other
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And it made me cry once again. Working with this cast, what a dream cast you're working with
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Tell me about your fellow actors working with that. So I am not experienced on Broadway
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and sometimes I can get a little nervous. But then Michael and Judy come to the rescue and help me
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because they know what they're doing. Definitely. And I love Little Zell
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Oh my gosh, Zell, and I love Oscar. And we're a family
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Yeah. Working with Sam Gold, you're working with one of the finest directors
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what that's been like for you, the whole process. Tell me. He's so amazing in the way, what he's done in the round and circle and the square
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I mean, I was a little nervous at first, but it is so fantastic
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I have no idea how he did it, but he did. So it's going to ask you, how much fun are you having in the round
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Because I saw you in the proscenium, and now you're in the round. Is it fun? Yeah, it actually helps you connect a little bit
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And because, you know, there really isn't something, there isn't really something called cheating in the round
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So you can really turn however you want, but you have to have a reason
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and while you're turning, and that helps you, not only have to memorize your lines
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but helps you connect better. You know, for us, it's like we're sitting in the fun home with you
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It's really great to sit in the round. Very, very intimate. My final question is for you, when you took your bow tonight, making your Broadway debut
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do you remember what you were thinking? I did it. I did it
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That's what I was thinking. You were making your Broadway debut. How do you feel tonight? Tell me
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I'm just on Cloud 9 right now. It feels so surreal and just so great
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I think to be making your Broadway debut with Fun Home and working with this creative team
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It's incredible. It's incredible. And I feel so honored that I'm making my debut with a show
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that's so socially and politically important and so beautiful and matters to so many people
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I feel like I'm just so spoiled for the future. What's going to come next? I feel like I'm on Cloud Night
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You are so great watching you. Tell me what you love about Allison and playing her. the middle Allison
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I love the way she thinks. She's so quick-witted, and she doesn't have any kind of shame with her wit or her verbosity
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She's constantly investigating things and constantly curious, which is so great as an actor to be able to have a character
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that is constantly curious and investigating. It keeps it new every night, and yeah, it's very great
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Working with Janine, Lisa, and Sam. Just a dream team. A dream team. A dream come true
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They're incredible. They fit so well and they work so well together
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What's the biggest lesson you've learned from Sam? He's one of our finest directors
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He is one of our finest directors. To tell the story, it's all about figuring out how to get from one place to another
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Investigating how you get from one little place to another, just going step by step, has really just, I think, enlightened me as an actor, completely changed my work
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And working with his cast? It's a dream. I mean, I've watched some of them from afar and admired them for so long
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and to call them mom and dad now is just like surreal. Some days I'm sitting there
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and I can't believe I'm, I can't believe I'm there. So when you took your bow tonight on Broadway for your debut, do you remember what you were thinking
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I was crying. I was crying. Well, and the last thing I see in the show is Beth, and I'm always just so proud of her
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She has this incredible journey that she makes every single night. And I feel, you know, a kinship to her
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We're playing the same character and I love her so much as a human that I'm always just ending the show with like, wow, Beth, you did it
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You made it through this marathon of a show. Okay. It's your Broadway opening
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How do you feel tonight? It's a very surreal feeling because we've worked so hard for so long
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and you feel like, wait, wait, rehearsal must be tomorrow. We must have more work to do
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I haven't quite settled into just celebrating yet. This has been such a game changer
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I mean, I've seen this to all its incarnations here in New York, and now it's in the round
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What's up and like for you reinventing the show? I feel so lucky that I had producers that wanted to support me trying something new because I think the show is very unique and I knew I could deliver a really unique exciting production
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and I'm really happy with it. So I've seen so many shows at Circle of the Square since 1972
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So, I mean, you make it so accessible in that space. I mean, were there challenges for you
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I mean, the challenges, I had an amazing design team, but the challenges of doing a musical on the round are technical
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You know, for me, it's easy. It's about bringing everybody into such an intimate relationship with the performers
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That's just a no-brainer and I feel great about. But, you know, trying to make the music sound great in the round, things like that
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putting the band on stage, front and center. All that took a really brilliant team to put together
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Talk about collaborating with Janine and Lisa. This is such a beautiful show, what that whole process was like for you
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I mean, when you can see it on stage that everybody got along really well
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shared a vision, wanted the same things, and went after them. I think you can really feel it when
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people on a team, you know, don't quite have the same vision for the show and are fighting for their
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own vision of the show. I think all three of us wanted the exact same show, and it was a real
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joy to work on. Take me back to the beginning. How did you first get involved with this show
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You know, Janine and Lisa started working on it, and they didn't have a director, and I sort of overheard
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them chatting about it on a writer's retreat. I was just very intrigued by their conversations about how to take a graphic novel and make it
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into a musical. I thought, ooh, I'd like to direct that. That sounds hard, you know
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And what appeal to about the subject matter? It's such a groundbreaking musical
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Yeah, I mean, I don't know. The book just floored me, so I was so emotionally engaged in the
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story. I'm not even sure why when I look back. It's a very universal story, and, you know
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I think I identified both with Allison and with her father. It just, it moved me so much
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Congratulations. It's opening night, Broadway. How do you feel? I feel incredible. It's my Broadway debut
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So it's really just been an incredible ride and incredible to be a part of such a beautiful show
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And yeah, it's the best I could ever ask for. Broadway debut, it has to be surreal. Working with this company, your director, Sam Gold
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Janine, Lisa, I mean, what's going through your mind? It's kind of, I've been a part of this production for a few years through labs and workshops
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and just being a part of it for so many years, there's no knowing where a show can go
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And at the beginning, I was just so thankful to be a part of a production
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let alone to work with someone like Janine Tesori, who I had studied in school for so many years
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whose music I adored, and to now have the opportunity to have her write music that I'm going to sing
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It was just mind-blowing. So it's just been incredible that it's had such a wonderful trajectory
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and audiences have really responsible. to it the way that we were hoping they would
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It must be wonderful. You're so close to the audience in the round at Circle and the Square
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I mean, how you see how this touches audiences. It's, when we were downtown at the public, the Newman is a small space
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but the audience is still pretty far away from the stage. And this show is so small and intimate
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and it's about a really small, intimate story with this wonderful family
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And just having the opportunity to feel like the audience is actually in the home with us
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It feels like they're voyeurs into our experience, and it makes it that much more subtle and nuance
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It allows us as actors to, rather than play things broadly or really, like, feel like you have to play to the mezzanine
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or the balcony up top. It's really just, it can be really grounded
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and really just focused on telling the story. So when you took your bow tonight on Broadway
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do you remember what you were thinking? I was just like, holy crap
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Like, this is happening. And it's just like, Beyond my wildest dreams that I think that I make my Broadway debut
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and let alone make my Broadway debut, it's such a beautiful and important show, and something that I feel needs to be on Broadway right now
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and that audiences have been craving for a long time. But you don't know where to go
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You're Papua Neat. His battle rest. You got, you got, you got to give him the best
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Come to that fun, home. That's the best. You guys are so awesome in this show
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It is opening night. How do you feel tonight? I feel just, oh my gosh
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I feel so excited that it was just my Broadway opening that debut
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Oh, my God. It was amazing. for me and I've been dreaming of this my whole life. Well, not my whole life, I'm exaggerating
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but basically my whole life. So it's very, it feels very amazing to accomplish that dream
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You guys have made your debut so early in your careers. It's the coolest thing, right? Today was
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really cool for you, like the whole day, right? Yeah, it was. It was really, really awesome this whole day
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Yeah, this was my dream and it was just the best day ever for me
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Okay, so you guys woke up, right? So what did you do before you got to the theater
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Tell me about your day. I stayed at home. That's what I did, nothing interesting
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Not really nothing interesting either. But then you got to the theater, right
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I'm sure there were gifts and all these things. Yeah. We got there early to give some gifts
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Okay. Yeah. It was really fun to, like, just give gifts. because like, but like I sometimes lost my way
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because I didn't even know where all the gifts were because they were like in separate places
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And it was hard. Oh, something did exciting. I just remembered. It was my brother's family party today
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and my grandma and my grandma and grandpa were over. Okay, so how wonderful is it working on this show
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Just tell me what it means to you being a part of Fun Home. That's a difficult question
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It's awesome. The show is really touching. love the show and it's just awesome it's amazing it's the music is awesome the story is awesome and
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I like performing real stories and for you um it is just amazing to be a part of the cast and
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um it's just awesome because I have dreamed of this my my whole life because I did my first show
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when I was one. Wow. Okay. So when you took your bow tonight on Broadway for your debut, do you remember what you were thinking
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I was thinking, oh my gosh, I just did this with this amazing casting crew, and it's just a privilege to work with them
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And oh my gosh, I'm so happy. And for you, when you took your bow, what were you thinking
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I was thinking like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I can't believe this is happening
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Oh, my gosh. Thank you
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