Student Blog: Christian Ryan on Media Theatre's Production of Fun Home

What has been your creative vision for bringing Fun Home to life?

When I first saw the show, I fell in love with it. I think it's a wonderful story and a great representation of Alison’s story. I’ve been a fan of her comic, the original source material, for so long, so I loved seeing it translate really well to the stage. In terms of my artists vision for the show, what really stood out to me is the central theme of all of the source material is family dynamic. I was interested in translating that family dynamic to a public space. Generally, when you're with your family its private, you're not in the public facing view, but this is the nature of performance. So, what stuck out to me in the comic and the musical is the punctuation of the discussion with family.

Everyone can relate to it because everyone has their own kind of vocabulary when talking with their family, for better or worse. My vision is to show that onstage and what we are executing that with is presenting the fun home, the doorways and doors that exist in a home, and using them as punctuation for this family’s discussion. In the design of the show, you'll see a lot of doorways and doors and I think, at least in my family, when we were in an argument and wanted to punctuate it, we would slam a door. So, really the vision is to show that dynamic, how Alison is coming into her own while in a very specific environment.

Has there been anything about directing this musical that has challenged you as a director?

What I’m really mindful of is ensuring that the representation is the shining factor. It is certainly the core element to this show which is a memoir-esque version of Alison Bechdel’s early childhood and formative years story. I haven't yet encountered any challenges but I am poised and ready to make sure we are seeing Alison’s lens in real-time at all junctions. So, knowing that it's a time-jump piece, I want to make sure that when we are [for example] in a small-Alison scene, we don’t want to feel like an observer watching a past snippet. It’s happening in real time while adult Alison is happening in real time. So, running concurrent timelines is what I am mindful of in terms of upcoming challenges.

How do you prepare to direct a show?

Sitting with the source material and knowing its got its bones in a tragic comic, as they call it. Putting all the material out in front of me and making sure that  it's translating. It's a lot of studious work: sitting at your couch with a comic or strips, kind of marrying all the departments, making sure every department is mindful and true to what it is - which is a queer, lesbian story and coming of age to some degree. So, all the way down to the lighting department, to the props, and to the costumes, it is my job to make sure that they are translating what we are looking to convey effectively. So that's how I prepare - by making sure every aspect is honoring what we are trying to tell, down to what lamp we are choosing!

There are a lot of young actors in the show and Media Theatre is a leader in musical theatre education. Aside from producing shows like Fun Home with multiple roles for young actors, Media’s youth ensemble series gives hundreds of students performance opportunities each year. Why is it important to you to cultivate the talents of young creatives and give them these opportunities to perform?

You’ve hit exactly what we love to do at the Media Theatre and that is provide performance opportunities to young actors. It is important because they are the next generation of storytellers. When you zoom out, what every theater company does is we are storytellers. So, there are certainly many factors to running a company and picking a show, and things like that. But the core root of what everyone does in the arts and in performance is tell a story. We are focused on finding important stories that we can tell and we find Allison Bechdel’s story specifically very important to tell. It also has a wonderful opportunity for young actors because it is a timeline piece that jumps and shows her adolescence. So Fun Home is important to tell Alison’s story but at Media Theatre, we are one of the only companies in the area that are putting on full-scale junior productions for an actor at age six. If one of the young actors has been bitten by the theater bug, we are one of the great institutions that can say “Hey, that six year old can get in front of an audience right now.” That’s part of our core mission that we really love.

What do you hope audiences will take away from this show?

I really hope that the audience’s takeaway [is] an understanding. Similar to getting to the essence of everything that we do, we tell stories, right? And so, we want to be understood and I think that's part of the core message of Alison's upbringing or realization and her narration to get there. She's talking as an adult woman reflecting on the past, feeling like she was not understood or heard. At its simplest, I want people to walk away having a better understanding of others and of themselves.

Do you have any advice for aspiring directors, or even just theater artists in general?

The easiest answer is to say “be yourself,” but what does that mean, you know? 

Artistry and storytelling is made up of so many unique and individual storytellers and people. Every voice is important, so your voice is important. there's a voice in your head, or the things you tell yourself, or the things you feel [that] sometimes feel counteractive to that… and maybe your vision and your path is not going the way that you anticipated but your voice and your story matters. It needs to be told and it should be told. To take a piece from Alison’s story, we don't want to feel like we're not understood. So, if and when - I’m sure there's a when - you get that sliver of doubt or insecurity, you need to squash it by saying “no, my voice matters and my story matters. Here’s how I’m going to do it,” and craft that plan. Whether that means creating performance opportunities for yourself… I mean, Alison effectively created ways in her life to feel understood, its certainly where a lot of the college-aged scenes came from. But in terms of young artists, I think its making a plan and believing in yourself that yes, your voice matters.

And finally, how would you describe Fun Home in one word?

I’d say, transformative. I think it's transformative for this character, for Alison. It's transformative in the adult Alison studying the relationships that she had. Its transformative for the audience in hopefully understanding a queer story, and a lesbian story through Alison’s eyes, to varying levels of degrees of familiarity. I’m sure we will have queer audience members who resonate with it and are transformed by it again and again. But I’m sure we will [also] have audience members who are not close to queer/lesbian circles [and] we’re hopefully transforming them to have an understanding of how a queer child is brought up and their discovery, self-explanation, and self expression. So I want everyone to be transformed by this one, by Alison.