FUN HOME to Arrive at 5th Avenue Theatre This July; Cast Announced!

Producers Fox Theatricals (Kristin Caskey, Mike Isaacson) and Barbara Whitman are thrilled to announce the casting for the Seattle engagement of the first National Tour of Fun Home, the groundbreaking, Tony Award-winning Best Musical. The tour will premiere in Seattle at The 5th Avenue Theatre July 11-30, 2017.

For single tickets (starting at $36) and information, visit www.5thavenue.org, call the Box Office at (206) 625-1900 or visit the Box Office at 1308 5th Avenue in Downtown Seattle.

Robert Petkoff (Broadway's Ragtime, All The Way, Anything Goes) will play Bruce, Susan Moniz (Broadway's Grease, Chicago's Marriott Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater) will play Helen and Kate Shindle (Broadway's Legally Blonde, Cabaret) will play Alison.

Joining them will be Abby Corrigan as Medium Alison, Carly Gold as Small Alison, Victoria Janicki as Joan, Robert Hager as Roy, Henry Boshart as John, Luké Barbato Smith as Christian, Anthony Fortino, Noelle Hogan, Caroline Murrah, Amanda Naughton and Michael Winther. At certain performances, Jadyn Schwartz will play the role of Small Alison.

Fun Home was the event of the 2015 Broadway season, receiving raves from critics and audiences alike, winning five 2015 Tony Awards including Best Musical and making history along the way as the first show written exclusively by women to win theater's highest achievement. It is the first Broadway musical with a lesbian protagonist and was named to all of the major top 10 lists including The New York Times, Associated Press, New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, BuzzFeed, The Daily Beast, Chicago Tribune, The Hollywood Reporter and more.

Based on Alison Bechdel's best-selling graphic memoir, Fun Home introduces us to Alison at three different ages as she explores and unravels the many mysteries of her childhood that connect with her in surprising new ways. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Fun Home is a refreshingly honest, wholly original musical about seeing your parents through grown-up eyes.

Fun Home features music by Jeanine Tesori, book and lyrics by Lisa Kron and direction by Sam Gold, whose work on this production earned them Tony Awards for Best Score, Best Book and Best Direction. With this win, Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori also made history by becoming the first female writing team to be awarded the Best Score Tony Award.

Fun Home was also nominated for 2015 Tony Awards for Best Scenic Design of Musical (David Zinn), Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Ben Stanton) and Best Orchestrations (John Clancy). The creative team also includes Danny Mefford (Choreography), Kai Harada (Sound Design), David Zinn (Costume Design) and Chris Fenwick (Music Direction).

Tony Award-winning director Sam Gold, who staged both the Off Broadway and Broadway productions of Fun Home, restaged the national tour. The Broadway production of Fun Home opened on Broadway at Circle in the Square Theatre on April 19, 2015 and ran through September 10, 2016.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Robert Petkoff makes his 5th Avenue debut as Bruce. His Broadway credits include All The Way with Bryan Cranston, Anything Goes, Ragtime, Spamalot, Fiddler On The Roof and Epic Proportions. He has performed in London in The Royal Family with Dame Judi Dench and in Tantalus. His regional credits include Sweeney Todd, Hamlet, Troilus & Cressida, Follies, Romeo & Juliet, Compleat Female Stage Beauty and The Importance Of Being Earnest. He has been seen in film in Irrational Man, Vice Versa, Milk and Money and Gameday and on TV in Elementary, Forever, Law and Order: SVU, The Good Wife and more. Petkoff is an award-winning audiobook narrator.

Susan Moniz makes her 5th Avenue debut as Helen. She has been seen on Broadway as Sandy and Rizzo in Grease. Her regional credits include: Follies (Sally, Chicago Shakespeare Theater), October Sky (Elsie, world premiere), Peggy Sue Got Married (Peggy, world premier), Kismet (Joseph Jefferson award), Into the Woods, 9 to 5, Carousel (Marriott Theatre), The Merry Widow, The Sound Of Music (Chicago Lyric Opera), Hot Mikado (Ford's Theatre), Phantom, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Fulton Theatre), Shadowlands and The Spitfire Grill (Provision Theatre), Evita and BIG (Drury Lane Theatre). She has been seen on television in Chicago PD and Romance, Romance (A&E).

Kate Shindle makes her 5th Avenue debut as Alison. Her Broadway credits include Legally Blonde (Vivienne), Cabaret (Sally Bowles), Wonderland (Hatter) and Jekyll & Hyde. Other stage credits include Rapture, Blister, Burn (Catherine), After the Fall (Maggie), Restoration, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Gypsy, Into the Woods, The Last Five Years, First Lady Suite, and The Mousetrap. She has been seen in film and on television in Lucky Stiff, Law and Order: SVU, White Collar, Gossip Girl, The Stepford Wives, and Capote. Shindle is a longtime activist, author of Being Miss America: Behind the Rhinestone Curtain and President of Actors' Equity Association.

Alison Bechdel (author of the graphic novel) created the comic strip "Dykes to Watch Out For," which ran in lesbian and gay publications from 1983 to 2008. In 2006 she gained a wider readership with the publication of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, a graphic memoir about her relationship with her closeted gay father. She followed this with a second memoir, Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama. She's currently working on a book about the body and trends in physical fitness, called The Secret to Superhuman Strength. She is the recipient of a 2014 MacArthur Fellowship.

Lisa Kron (Book & Lyrics) is the 2015 Tony Award winner for Best Book of a Musical and Best Score of a Musical for Fun Home. Other plays include In The Wake, Well and the Obie Award winning 2.5 Minute Ride. Her acting credits include Well (Tony nomination for Best Actress) and Good Person of Szechwan (Lortel Award-Outstanding Featured Actress). She has received Guggenheim, Sundance and MacDowell fellowships, Doris Duke Performing Artist, Cal Arts/Alpert, and Helen Merrill Awards, and grants from the Creative Capital and NYFA. Kron is a founding member of the Obie and Bessie Award-winning theater company The Five Lesbian Brothers and serves on the boards of the MacDowell Colony, The Sundance Institute and on the Council of the Dramatists Guild of America.

Jeanine Tesori (Music) is the 2015 Tony Award winner for Best Score of a Musical for Fun Home. Her Broadway credits also include Violet, Caroline, or Change, Shrek the Musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Twelfth Night and John Guare's A Free Man of Color and she wrote the score for Mother Courage (starring Meryl Streep) at Delacorte Theater. Her opera credits include A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck (libretto, Tony Kushner; Glimmerglass) and The Lion, the Unicorn and Me (libretto, J.D. McClatchy; Washington National Opera). Her songs are featured in the revival of Gilmore Girls. Tesori is the artistic director/co-founder of A Broader Way, an arts empowerment program for girls from underserved communities; the founding artistic director of Encores! Off-Center and a lecturer in music at Yale University and Columbia University. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild.

Director Sam Gold's Broadway credits include Fun Home (2015 Tony Award winner), The Glass Menagerie (Belasco), A Doll's House, Part 2 (Golden), The Real Thing (Roundabout), The Realistic Joneses (Lyceum), Picnic (Roundabout) and Seminar (Golden; Ahmanson, L.A.). More recent works include John (Signature Theater, Obie Award, Drama Desk Nomination), The Mystery of Love & Sex (Lincoln Center), Fun Home (The Public; Obie Award, Lortel and Drama Desk nominations), The Village Bike (MCC), The Flick (Playwrights Horizons, Lortel nomination), Uncle Vanya (Soho Rep, Drama Desk nomination), The Realistic Joneses (Yale Rep, CT Critics Circle Award), The Big Meal (Playwrights Horizons, Lortel Award), Look Back in Anger (Roundabout, Lortel nomination), Circle Mirror Transformation (Playwrights Horizons, Drama Desk nomination, Obie Award) and The Aliens (Rattlestick, Obie Award). Gold is the resident director at Roundabout Theatre Company and received training at Juilliard.

The non-profit 5th Avenue Theatre is the nation's premier incubator for new musical theater. Since 2001, the Seattle-based company has produced 18 new musicals. To date, nine (including the sensational hit Disney's Aladdin) have moved on to Broadway premieres, earning a combined 15 Tony Awards, including two for Best Musical (Hairspray and Memphis). The 5th Avenue Theatre is also known for its world class, critically acclaimed productions of musicals chosen from both the contemporary canon and the Golden Age of Broadway.

Unique in its Chinese-inspired design, this exquisite theater opened in 1926 as a venue for vaudeville and film. Today, under the leadership of Executive Producer and Artistic Director David Armstrong, Managing Director Bernadine C. Griffin and Producing Artistic Director Bill Berry, this non-profit theater company attracts an annual attendance of more than 300,000, including over 20,000 subscribers-one of the largest theater subscriptions in North America.

In addition to its main stage productions, The 5th Avenue Theatre is also committed to encouraging the next generation of theatergoers through its extensive educational outreach programs. For more information about The 5th Avenue Theatre, its season and its programs, visit www.5thavenue.org.

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus

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