arts & life

theater

There’s No
Place Like

Home

Tony-winner Lisa Kron returns to her
native Michigan — along with her history-
making musical, Fun Home.

Suzanne Chessler | Contributing Writer

Lisa Kron

42 November 17 • 2016

W

hen Lisa Kron was 16,
she saw a professional
play at the Fisher
Theatre for the first time — Twigs
starring Sada Thompson, who won
a Tony Award for her performance.
The plot was divided into four sec-
tions, each focusing on a different
woman in one family confronting
issues involving the man in her
life.
About to turn 56, Kron will
return to the Fisher Theatre audi-
ence as a Tony winner herself for
writing the book and lyrics of
Fun Home, now on tour. She will
be watching her musical about a
family as experienced through one
member exploring relationships at
three different ages and confront-
ing sexual identity.
The musical, which won five
Tony Awards total, is based on
Alison Bechdel’s bestselling graph-
ic memoir, which unravels the
mysteries of her childhood — and
attitude changes toward family —
over time. It is the first show writ-
ten exclusively by women to win
theater’s highest achievement.
“The thing that is most satisfy-
ing when I look at Fun Home is to
see how we channeled the heart of
the graphic novel into a completely
different form,” Kron says about
the production, which runs Nov.
29-Dec. 11 in Detroit.
“One of the great experiences of
my artistic life has been collaborat-
ing with composer Jeanine Tesori.
Whereas I knew nothing about
musicals except as a person who
loves them and has been in them,
Jeanine is a master of the form.
Combining our different back-
grounds and strengths was really
glorious.”

PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS

PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS

Kron, who was born in Ann
Arbor and grew up in Lansing,
studied theater at Kalamazoo
College and established a New
York acting career in produc-
tions of The Normal Heart, The
Vagina Monologues and The Most
Fabulous Story Ever Told.
Her creative writing skills
emerged in theater pieces about
family. While 2.5 Minute Ride
relates the Holocaust experiences
of her late father, William Kron,
Well tells about her mother, Ann
Kron, still living in Michigan, long
tackling allergies and steadfastly
fighting for neighborhood integra-
tion.
“I’ve always used material from
my own life as I explored themes

and mechanisms of human nature
and ideas,” she says. “Someone
once asked me the difference
between therapy and autobio-
graphical theater, and I said that
therapy is about a person and
autobiographical theater is about
an audience.”
It took seven years to transform
Bechdel’s autobiographical book
into a musical.
“In some ways, it’s very much
the same working on a play I
originated and working on a play
being adapted because of having a
key story to tell,” Kron explains. “It
was true of me in ways that I didn’t
realize.
“Taking material and making
something that is an accomplished