Amy today we look at the history making Broadway Musical fun home about family, memory, coming out, first love and a daughters relationship with her father. It is the first ever Broadway Musical to feature a lesbian protagonist. From home fun home is based on the memoir by the pioneering graphic novelist Alison Bechdel who will join us for the hour. Made the emotions i was trying to get that in the book and in my own self i feel like when i talked about making it proper funeral for my father i wanted to fully grieve him in a way i had not been able to. His life was a trout in these lies. Amy and we will speak to Jeanine Tesori and lisa kron who just made history as the first allfemale writing team to win a tony award for a musicals score. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. In ohio, a grand jury has indicted a university of Cincinnati Police officer on murder charges for shooting sam dubose, an unarmed African American man. Police officer ray tensing fatally shot dubose on july 19, after pulling him over for not having a front license plate. In announcing the indictment wednesday, prosecutor joseph deters called the killing senseless. I have been doing this for over 30 years. This is the most asinine act i have seen a Police Officer make. Totally unwarranted. It was it is an absolute tragedy. In the year 2015, that anyone behave in this manner. It was senseless. I met with the Family Moments ago. Its just horrible. Amy cincinnati mayor john cranley praised the indictment and compared it to cases in other cities where grand juries chose not to indict officers. We wanted the truth to come out. When you look at, for example the videos in new york earlier this year and you see that no charge was brought, there was a great sense that justice was not done. Amy the prosecutor released footage which shows tensing approaching sam duboses car and telling him that he was stopped for not having his front license plate mounted. The officer asks to see a bottle lying on the floor of the passenger side seat, and dubose hands him an unopened bottle of gin. Then tensing asks to see duboses license. As dubose searches for it, tensing grows agitated and asks him to take off his seatbelt. The bose protests then he turns the key to start the car. Tenzing shoot bows in the head desk shoots shoots dubose in the head. Take your seatbelt off. I did not do anything. Amy officer tensing claims he shot dubose because he was dragged by the car as he drove away. The car did not start moving until after the bose was shot after dubose was shot. Sam duboses 9yearold son samuel, addressed the crowd. He didnt do nothing but shoot him. What is he doing . [indiscernible] they shot him in the head. This dude lied. Amy it is the first time a Police Officer has ever been indicted for murder in the county. In news from the middle east residents are fleeing the kurdish village of amadiya after turkeys heaviest airstrikes in two weeks pummeled the hillside town in northern iraq. Turkey has said the target of the airstrikes are the military camps of the kurdish peoples party, known as the pkk. Residents of amadiya say yesterdays airstrikes struck civilian homes and fields. In news from egypt, the announcement of the verdict in the trial of two al jazeera journalists accused of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood has been abruptly postponed. An Egyptian Court had been due to issue its ruling in the retrial of Mohamed Fahmy and baher mohamed, who each spent more than a year in prison on charges of aiding a terrorist organization before being released on bail in february. Their verdict is now expected august 8. Journalist Mohamed Fahmy spoke out wednesday. I dont know what is going to happen. I am paying for my own legal fees. It has become costly for me on every level. Emotionally, financially. My family i enjoyed my first couple of days of freedom but it is still limited. Amy in news from afghanistan the spokesperson for the National Directorate of security has said there is no doubt that taliban leader mullah omar died more than two years ago. The Afghan Government has said it is assessing the reports. U. S. Intelligence officials are also investigating. On wednesday, White House Deputy spokesperson eric shultz said the reports of omars death are credible. We are aware of reports. We believe the reports of mullah omars death are credible. Im not in a position to comment on the specifics surrounding his death. Amy the fbi has arrested a florida man for allegedly plotting a terrorism attack in support of the selfproclaimed islamic state, after an fbi informant supplied him with a n explosive device. The 23yearold man named Harlem Suarez had been under fbi surveillance for months. Earlier this week, an fbi agent posing as an operative for isil took suarez to meet another fbi agent, who gave suarez an inert explosive device and told him how to use it. When suarez exited the car, the agents arrested him. In news from tunisia, parliament has overwhelmingly passed a new terror law. The legislation allows for police to detain suspects for up to 15 days without giving them access to a lawyer or a judge. It also makes allows prosecutors to seek the Death Penalty in terrorism cases. The new legislation comes after last months deadly shooting in the resort town of sousse, when a shooter killed 38 people, mostly british tourists. In news from the campaign trail, democratic candidate Bernie Sanders has hosted the Biggest Online and grassroots organizing event of the 2016 campaign. Wednesday night, as many as 100,000 people gathered for simultaneous house parties in all 50 states, as sanders supporters look to mobilize the progressive wing of the democratic party. During his 20minute livestream address, sanders addressed Police Brutality and the case of sandra bland, an African American woman who died in a texas jail two weeks ago after being arrested for failing to signal a lane change. We are tired of seeing black women assaulted, put in handcuffs and sent to jail and died three days later in the case of sandra bland. For what crime . She did not signal she made a left turn. We are seeing that all over this country. Enough is enough. We have got to come that institutional racism in the United States of america. Amy in california, authorities are investigating a 2milelong oil slick that appeared in the water off the coast of santa barbara. Two kayakers discovered the slick wednesday when they suddenly found their legs and boats covered in oil. The slick appeared about 12 miles away from the site of a massive pipeline spill in may which dumped 100,000 gallons of crude oil onto the beach. Planned parenthoods website was reportedly attacked by antichoice activists wednesday, who took the site offline for hours. The organization tweeted that the site was being targeted by antiabortion extremists. The online attack comes as planned parenthood is under fire from antichoice activists, who are accusing the organization of selling fetal tissue. Planned parenthood has repeatedly said that it shares the tissue with medical researchers, without making any profit. Meanwhile, a California Court issued a restraining order wednesday to prevent the same antichoice group that released edited videos of planned parenthood from releasing videos about a California Company that supplies fetal tissue to medical researchers. Three graduates of the university of virginia have sued Rolling Stone over a now discredited article about an alleged gang rape on the college campus. The article was later retracted after parts of the articles account were found to be inaccurate. The graduates, who were members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, have sued both the magazine and the articles author. Meanwhile, Rolling Stone managing editor will dana has announced he is stepping down after 19 years at the magazine. And those are some of the headlines this is democracy now, democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. In a democracy now special, we turn now to the acclaimed Broadway Musical fun home, which swept the tony awards last month. Composer Jeanine Tesori and lyricist lisa kron made history as the first female duo to win a tony award for a musicals score. Fun home is also the first ever Broadway Musical to feature a lesbian protagonist. This is a Video Montage from the hit performance. My dad and i were exactly alike. My dad and i were nothing alike. I guess im older. Its harder when youre older. To be in broken windows, brass been near beenveneer. I know you. I know you. Amy the musical is based on the 2006 bestselling graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel, fun home a family tragicomic. The memoir is a poignant explosion of family, memory, coming out and a daughters relationship with her father. The title comes from the bechdels nickname for their family business, a funeral home. Throughout the memoir, bechdel, the artist and protagonist sketches out her hazy memories of growing up in rural pennsylvania and coming to terms with her sexuality as she tries to make sense of her fathers suicide. Her father was secretly gay and took his life shortly after allison came out as a lesbian. Incidents are told and retold in light of new information, each panel painstakingly drawn in black line art with a graygreen ink wash. In the musical bechtel is depicted by three actresses at different stages in her life. Before fun home, bechdel was best known for her longrunning comic strip dykes to watch out for. Nermeen shaikh and i interviewed bechdel along with lisa kron and Jeanine Tesori who adapted the memoir for broadway. I started by asking alison to talk about her life story as she tells it in fun home. My childhood growing up in pennsylvania with my closeted father. Realizing that i was a lesbian. I was this different kind of kid growing up. It was a story that felt i felt like a could not tell that story for a long time because it was revealing intimate secrets people did not know about my father. People did not know he had killed himself. No one is absolutely certain it was a suicide. Those felt like problematic things to make public. I felt for a long time like this was a story that was important to me personally but also a culturally important story. It showed how differently my generation of gay people could go on to live their lives, as opposed to my fathers generation. I came of age on the other side. I got to be out. Have a whole happy life. My father did not get to do that. It is a book about different historical paths. Amy when did you understand your father was gay . I did not find out until i came out to my family as a lesbian in college. My mother told me. My father never really had a direct conversation with me about it. This all happened in a condensed period of time. I came out to my parents in february and in july my father died. There was a lot of of people in my family a lot of upheaval in my family. The book is a way of going back to sort out that confusing time. Amy what do you think the Different Things are that led you to decide to make these things public . You say it is culturally a very important story. Which is true. To what extent are you preparing yourself to make more revelations about your private life . I think i was preparing to tell the story over the course of two decade of writing my comic strip. I made the decision soon after i got out of college to draw this comic strip. I like drawing cartoons. I was getting very involved in the feminist and lesbian activities. Stuff in new york city. I lived in new york in the early 1980s. I started publishing these cartoons about people like me and my friends. Amy why did you call it dykes to watch out for . Alison something that came off the top of my head. I had a friend in college i would write letters to and started drawing early prototypes. She inspired the silly mood. I labeled one of these crazy lesbians dykes to watch out for number 27. That was the first one i had ever drawn. I did not have 26 other ones. It struck me as funny. It has a double meeting meaning. Look out for them, they are great, look out for them they are in trouble they are trouble. Nermeen you wanted to give your father a proper funeral . Alison when my father died it was under the cloud of these misunderstandings. I felt like people do not know what his life was really like. We had this bizarre, conventional funeral for him in our family funeral home which felt wrong to me. I had grown up in the funeral business and we would always joke about, just how bizarre american morning rituals are mourning rituals are. Amy lets turn to a clip from fun home. Funnel commercial take 7 million thousand. You have to bury your mama, you dont know where to go. Youve got to give. Amy that is from the musical fun home and we will speak with the women who wrote the book, the music, the lyrics. Right now we are talking to Alison Bechdel. Is this far from what you did . Reading the tragic comic. Reading fun home, you guys did perform. Alison we certainly played around in the funeral home. It was this funny stage set. Always waiting for a funeral to happen. We had carts we would push around and play with that the folding chairs went on. A fun place to play. When lisa kron wrote the play she focused on that aspect. Nermeen the song, it all comes back, from the musical. Mi just like you am i just like you . Amy we are talking to Alison Bechdel. Tell us about your dad. When it comes to his secret gay life, it was more than that. Alison my father was a High School Teacher. I later learned he was carrying on with some of his underaged students. Kids in 11th grade or something. He had almost he had got arrested once for buying a kid a drink. Really, i think, it was an issue of him having some sexual stuff going on with this boy. There was this threat that it would become public and what would happen to my family. He was charged with underage drinking, not anything else. My mother was living with this constant anxiety that somehow this would become public. There was a great deal of strain. Amy lets go to the song about your mom. Maybe you can weigh in before we turn to this. Your mother isnt the preeminent figure in the play, the musical. You ended up writing a book about her. She is not the main figure in fun home. Before we talk about this revealing song which is a highlight for the figure who is your mother, talk about her. Alison my mother was an amazing person. I keep thinking what would it be like for her to see this play. She died at skill years ago just before it opened she died two years ago just before it opened to the public. My mother was also an actress. She was a High School Teacher but her passion was for acting. She would often do summer stock. It is funny to me that she has become a character on the stage. I think she would have gotten a kick out of that. Amy how your mother related to your father in raising the three of you. In a sense, she was a counterforce. She knew there was something wrong. Alison yeah. I feel like i could probably write 17 more books about my family and what was going on. My mother, she knew about my fathers relationships with these boys and men. I think she consider leaving at some point but could not. She had three kids. She consulted with the family doctor, her priest, everyone said you have to stay with your husband. She was a beautiful person and she did that she was a dutiful person and she did that. Part of this crazy constellation of events, one of those things was my mother decided she had had it and she asked my father for a divorce. That is part of why we think he probably intentionally stepped in front of the truck. Its striking me as unseemly as going around talking about this. Even though i have written a play, it is painful, intimate stuff. Amy i think thats why it is so powerful. The way you convey it. In cartoons, in a graphic novel so powerful. It changes the whole medium. Even the song about your mom days and days. Lets go to a clip. Days, and days, and days. Thats how it happens. May the lunches and car rides and searched shirts and socks no one clocks the days. Amy this is democracy now. Will be back in a minute we will be back in a minute. Dont you come back here. I didnt raise you to give away your days like me. Amy days and days from the Broadway Musical, fun home. This is democracy now, democracy now . Org. We spend the hour looking at this remarkable Tonywinning Broadway production. In addition to Alison Bechdel we are joined by lisa kron and Jeanine Tesori who just made history by becoming the first female duo to win a tony for best original score of a musical. Jeanine tesori has been described as the most prolific and honored female theatrical composer in broadway history. Her other works include include caroline, or change; shrek the musical; thoroughly modern millie; and violet. Lisa kron wrote the lyrics and the book for fun home, which earned her a tony award for best book of a musical. I asked lisa to discuss the challenges of transforming Alison Bechdels graphic novel into a musical. Lisa the book has an essay quality to it. It feels like it has a straightforward narrative but it does not really. The action of the book is the narrative voice that appears in captions in the book, interrogating, remembering the scenes but interrogating what really happened. Taking th