‘Fun Home’ songwriters Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron make history as 1st winning female team

NEW YORK, N.Y. – “Fun Home” songwriters Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron have made history by becoming the first female writing team to nab a Tony for musical score.

Based on the autobiographical graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, “Fun Home” centres on a woman growing up in the family funeral home in a small Pennsylvania town.

The last time two women were even nominated for Tonys as composers was back in 1991 when Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman got the nod for “The Secret Garden.”

Composer Tesori is also the songwriter behind the Tony-nominated “Violet,” ”Shrek the Musical” and “Caroline, or Change” and lyricist Kron’s works include the Tony-nominated “Well,” ”2.5 Minute Ride” and “In the Wake.”

“Fun Home” was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and The Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History.

In “Fun Home,” three different actors play the Alison Bechdel character simultaneously throughout the show, with the adult version, played by Beth Malone, acting as the story’s narrator. The other two, Emily Skeggs and Sydney Lucas, playing a college student and child, respectively, provides clues to the realization she’s attracted to women.

Tesori and Kron now join such winning writing teams as Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner, Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin, and John Kander and Fred Ebb.