EDGE revisits this interview it published during the musical's Broadway run.

When the musical "Fun Home," an adaptation of Alison Bechdel's graphic novel about her coming out as a lesbian during college and how it may have affected her closeted gay father's suicide just months later, first premiered as part of the Public Theatre's Lab series in the fall of 2012, the events of April 28, 2015 could barely have been imagined.

But on that morning, "Fun Home," which was then in its fourth week of performances at Broadway's Circle in the Square, earned a whopping 12 Tony Award nominations including ones for Best Musical, its director, Sam Gold, its authors, librettist and lyricist Lisa Kron and composer Jeanine Tesori, and five of its performers.

"Believe me, when we started this project, I wasn't thinking about it going to Broadway," says Tesori, whose other musicals include "Violet" and "Caroline or Change." "Lisa and I were just thinking about trying to write as much as we could, taking it in bited-size chunks like little Snickers bars, going section by section through Alison's book. Sometimes I look at the stage and think when did we write that? It was made sort of like a Rembrandt painting, layer by layer by layer."

Kron, an original member of The Five Lesbian Brothers and an award-winning playwright ("The 2.5 Minute Ride," "Well"), was both a logical and unusual choice for the assignment. "I was a fan of Alison's comic strip, 'Dykes to Watch Out For' for years and years, and I had even met her a couple of times, but I hadn't read 'Fun Home,'" she admits. "But it was suggested to me that it might make a good musical. I had never written a musical before, so I don't know why I thought it was a good idea."

Indeed, it turned out to be a great idea, especially using the concept of Alison at three stages in her life, as a young girl (played by Sydney Lucas), as a college student who finally accepts her lesbianism (played by Emily Skeggs), and as a 40-something woman trying to make sense of her past (played by Beth Malone).

"Alison's book was so dense and rich -- it was like a Bible," says Kron. "We spent a lot of time parsing through it, and thinking about those characters and what they were like. But I think one of things that drew me to the project is that a memoir looks back, but characters must look forward in a play, and that was one of things we had to unpack. When Alison is looking back at her life, she ties her coming out to her father's death, but as a younger woman looking forward, she had no idea that would happen."

Indeed, for all its sadness, much of the show's music is remarkably upbeat, such as Small Alison's "Ring of Keys" and Middle Alison's "Changing My Major," in which she extols the new-found pleasures of sex as lesbian. "That song isn't filled with any foreboding or preemptive sadness, it's filled with possibility," says Kron. "That's what makes us feel strongly for Alison, because we know what the characters can't see in the future."

Tesori's melodies prove to be the perfect match for Kron's lyrics. "Lisa's acumen as a playwright came in handy, because she asked questions I would never have thought about," says Tesori. Adds Kron: "Jeanine really understands what a theater song is like; so sometimes to get to the right point, I would have to write more and more and more, until she said she could get to the kernel of the song. And then we'd talk about it and I'd write some more."

For many audience members, however, the show's most memorable song is one of its saddest: "Days and Days," a lament sung by Alison's mother Helen (played by 2015 Tony Award nominee Judy Kuhn) about the unhappy way her life has turned out. "That song came from the heart, spleen, and pancreas," says Tesori, with a laugh. "Lisa and I talked a lot about if what if this is was a play and what Helen's monologue would be. Eventually, I asked her to write one so I could understand Helen. And in it, I saw things from my mother about how all the little moments add up to a lifetime of regret. And then I thought, how do we sing that and allow the audience to release something yet not put their head in a bowl of soup."

"It's true Helen is not like me, but I have an enormous amount of empathy for her," says Kuhn, "She has a lot of dignity in the way she copes with her situation, although she has her failings, for sure, I think everyone relates to the song, because at some point, you look back at the collection of your experiences, both positive and negative, and see how it adds up to where you are that moment. Sadly, for Helen, it hasn't turned out so well, and I think the audience has empathy for her. But what's so brilliant about 'Fun Home' is I think everyone can relate to someone in this story, because everybody is struggling with something complicated in their lives."