‘Fun Home’ (April 30 to May 9) Explores Memory, Identification, and the Complexity of Family – 2026

Columbia College Chicago college students convey the Tony Award-winning musical “Fun Home” to the stage, navigating a nonlinear story of household, id, and reminiscence.

Memory isn’t linear. Neither is “Fun Home.” 

Columbia College Chicago college students are bringing the Tony Award-winning musical to the stage, taking up a narrative that strikes by means of time, revisits moments from a number of angles, and asks performers to carry previous and current directly. Based on “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” by Alison Bechdel, the musical traces her coming-of-age alongside her relationship along with her father—an English instructor and funeral director whose hidden life shapes the emotional core of the story. 

Set throughout shifting timelines, “Fun Home” follows Alison at three distinct ages, a construction that displays how reminiscence works: fragmented, recursive, and sometimes unresolved. For pupil performers, meaning constructing a personality not as a straight line, however as a sequence of echoes—moments that repeat and achieve which means over time. 

Designing Memory on Stage

That nonlinear construction extends past efficiency into the design of the manufacturing itself. Brooke Rose, a senior Theatre Design and Technology main with a focus in scenic design, says designing the world of the present required rethinking how house capabilities onstage. “Designing ‘Fun Home’ posed an interesting challenge—how do you create fully realized spaces within something that isn’t linear?” Rose says. “We ultimately set the story inside Alison’s brain, which allowed us to explore how memories appear as she’s drawing and moving through them.” 

At its middle is a deeply private story about id, household, and what stays unstated. As Alison begins to know her personal id, she additionally begins to see her father extra clearly: a closeted homosexual man whose life was outlined by repression and management. The musical returns to key moments—childhood snapshots, faculty discoveries, moments of recognition—every time revealing one thing new. 

For performers, that construction shapes how relationships unfold throughout time. Lucas Clinton, a first-year Musical Theatre BFA pupil who performs Roy, approaches his position as half of a bigger emotional puzzle. “Roy only interacts with young Alison, but the older version is watching the memory unfold,” Clinton says. “Even without direct interaction, there’s still a connection—he becomes part of how she understands her father.” 

Building One Character Across Time

That layered storytelling extends to the ensemble as an entire. Assistant Director Maybelle Patterson, a senior theatre directing main, says the method has required actors to construct characters collaboratively throughout timelines. “There has been a lot of dramaturgical work between the three actors playing Alison to track how she grows,” Patterson says. “That shared process helps the story feel continuous, even as it moves through time.” 

The story’s exploration of queer id throughout generations continues to resonate with college students and audiences, providing each reflection and recognition. 

Visually, the manufacturing leans into abstraction whereas grounding every second in particular element. “When you enter the space, you’re stepping into something abstract—pink pipes that reference the brain, with light moving through them like memory,” Rose says. “It creates a kind of open environment where specific places come to life through furniture and details, rather than a single fixed setting.” 

For Columbia college students, that work is energetic. In rehearsal, they don’t seem to be simply performing the story—they’re shaping the way it unfolds, constructing connections throughout timelines and bringing emotional continuity to a fragmented narrative. 

That work comes collectively in a totally realized manufacturing on the Courtyard Theatre. Directed by Elizabeth Swanson, with choreography by Tanji Harper and music course by Colte Julian, “Fun Home” runs April 30 by means of May 9, 2026, on the Courtyard Theatre within the Getz Theatre Center, 72 East eleventh Street.