First Broadway Musical with Lesbian Hero Coming to San Francisco

Fun Home, the first Broadway musical with a lesbian protagonist, is coming to San Francisco.

The musical is based on an award winning graphic novel — really a memoir — by Alison Bechdel. The Tony wining musical adaptation of the novel, with music by Jeanine Tesori and lyrics and book by Lisa Kron, will be the first production for the reopened Curran Theatre in January of 2017.

Promoter Carol Shorenstein Hays announced the booking Monday evening at an event at the Curran, now undergoing renovation, featuring the musical’s principal creators: Bechdel, Tesori, Kron, and director Sam Gold.

Hays said Fun Home is the kind of work she hopes to showcase at the Curran: “Brave and bold.”

The book and the musical tell the story of Bechdel’s dysfunctional family, her relationship with her closeted gay father and her own recognition as a teenager that she was gay. Bechdel is also famous for her work on the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. 

“I don’t think this (play) could have happened 10 years ago,” Bechdel said. “People weren’t ready for a queer story (on Broadway).”

And yes, by the way, Alison Bechdel and her friend Liz Wallace are responsible for what’s known as the Bechdel-Wallace test, where a work of fiction, usually a movie, is judged on whether it features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. Fun Home passes the test.