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Who Will Play the Gay Dad in Broadway's Fun Home?

Who Will Play the Gay Dad in Broadway's Fun Home?

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Hugh Jackman has expressed interest in the musical adaptation of lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel's acclaimed graphic memoir about her relationship with her closeted father.

"My dad and I both grew up in the same small Pennsylvania town. And he was gay. And I was gay. And he killed himself. And I became a lesbian cartoonist." And so begins Fun Home, which will find a home on Broadway this spring.

Producers have confirmed that Tony winner Michael Cerveris, who played closeted patriarch Bruce Bechdel in the musical's celebrated off-Broadway engagement, will reprise his role on Broadway, Playbill reports.

This official casting news comes shortly after Hugh Jackman, who is currently appearing on Broadway in Jez Butterworth's The River, expressed interest in playing the role of Bruce. "It's an astonishing part," he told the New York Times.

"We would love to see [Jackman] in Fun Home some day," replied one of the show's lead producers. "For now, two fabulous opening night tickets await."

Cerveris, a Tony winner for his work in Assassins, has appeared on Broadway in The Who's Tommy, Titanic, Sweeney Todd, Lovemusik, Cymbeline, Hedda Gabler, In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play), and Evita. He was also a notable replacement as Hedwig in the original off-Broadway run of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Following its sold-out world premiere off-Broadway at the Public Theater, Fun Home,composer Jeanine Tesori and out playwright Lisa Kron's musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel's acclaimed 2006 graphic memoir, is scheduled to start performances April 4 and officially open April 22, 2015, at Broadway's Circle in the Square Theatre.

"Moving between past and present, Alison relives her unique childhood playing at the family's Bechdel Funeral Home, her growing understanding of her own sexuality and the looming, unanswerable questions about her father's hidden desires," read press notes about the production.

Sam Gold, who helmed Fun Home off-Broadway, will direct the musical's Broadway debut. Additional casting has not yet been announced.

Lyricist and librettist Kron, cofounder of the Five Lesbian Brothers theater troupe and a Tony nominee for Well, also wrote In the Wake and 2.5 Minute Ride. Tesori is the Tony-nominated composer of Shrek, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Caroline, or Change.

The original off-Broadway cast of Fun Home, a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, featured Beth Malone, Sydney Lucas, and Alexandra Socha as author-narrator Bechdel at three different ages. Tony nominee Judy Kuhn, Griffin Birney, Roberta Colindrez, Noah Hinsdale, and Joel Perez completed the cast. The original cast recording is now available.

The Advocate placed Fun Home at the top of its list of the best LGBT-inclusive New York theater of 2013, calling it "fresh and uncommonly moving."

Watch a montage of scenes from Fun Home in the video below.

30 Years of Out100Out / Advocate Magazine - Jonathan Groff & Wayne Brady

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