NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Yankeefan007
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/20/04
#1NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:03pm
Congrats to Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey.
"Awarded to “Next to Normal,” music by Tom Kitt, book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey, a powerful rock musical that grapples with mental illness in a suburban family and expands the scope of subject matter for musicals. (Moved into contention by the Board within the Drama category.)"
The finalists:
"The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity" by Kristoffer Diaz (soon to play 2nd Stage) - "a play invoking the exaggerated role-playing of professional wrestling to explore themes from globalization to ethnic stereotyping, as the audience becomes both intimate insider and ringside spectator"
"Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" by Rajiv Joseph, "a play about the chaotic Iraq war that uses a network of characters, including a caged tiger, to ponder violent, senseless death, blending social commentary with tragicomic mayhem"
"In the Next Room or the vibrator play" by Sarah Ruhl, "an inventive work that mixes comedy and drama as it examines the medical practice of a 19th century American doctor and confronts questions of female sexuality and emancipation."
http://www.pulitzer.org/
Updated On: 4/12/10 at 03:03 PM
#2NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:04pmI just came on to post this. DID NOT see this one coming, at all, but good for them.
David walked into the valley
With a stone clutched in his hand
He was only a boy
But he knew someone must take a stand
There will always be a valley
Always mountains one must scale
There will always be perilous waters
Which someone must sail
-Into the Fire
Scarlet Pimpernel
#2NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:04pm
Ugh, really? What a letdown. The five seconds of book and Yorkey's terrible lyrics do not deserve this.
I am happy for them, but sad for the rest of the amazing work this year.
Updated On: 4/12/10 at 03:04 PM
#3NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:05pm
I didn't know it was even eligible this year. Hmm... don't know how I feel about this.
~Steven
#4NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:06pm
In the Next Room was a finalist. Next Fall and Horton Foote were not.
~Steven
#5NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:07pm"Ugh, really?" pretty much sums up how I feel too.
#6NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:11pmGlad to see a musical win, but slightly disapointed it was this one. In my opinion, The Scottsboro Boys was the superior musical that should have won. In any event, congratulations to Kitt and Yorkey.
#7NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:12pmIt's the first musical to win since "Rent." A 14 year gap. Congrats!!
#8NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:12pmTake that billy Elliot
Attend the tale of Bovine Boy
His party threads we all enjoy
But does he have Mad Cow Disease?
He doesn't eat beef - but cows skating? - oh please!!!
With cocoa!?!
And lemonade!?!
The heifer-mad poster of Broadway
(World)
#9NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:12pmI have only listened to it twice and just wasn't impressed. I have not seen the show but it may be here during the tour. So based on what I have heard, I don't see why it won. But maybe I need to experience it in a theatre.
Just give the world Love.
Updated On: 4/12/10 at 03:12 PM
jagfkb
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/29/07
#10NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:13pmI feel bad for Foote or Next fall not even getting nominated, but congrats to Next to Normal!!! Finally, ths ifrst time in 13 years that a musical has won!!!
#11NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:13pmWhat a bore. Ditto the other letters & drama awards (the Cornelius Vanderbilt book wasn't bad, but there were much, much better this year).
#12NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:14pmThe Booth is a lucky theatre for musical Pulitzer winners- Sunday in the Park with George also played there when it won in 1985. That just popped into my head.
Roscoe
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#13NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:16pmI'm in the "meh" camp about N2N winning, but I'm really appalled that the idiotic IN THE NEXT ROOM was a finalist.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
After Eight
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
#14NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:16pm
I'm quite surprised by this.
I liked "Next to Normal," but a Pulitzer Prize winner? I don't think so. I'm very surprised that "The Orphans' Home Cycle" wasn't even a finalist. I felt it should have won.
But I am thrilled to see that the dreadful "Circle Mirror Transfomations" wasn't the winner, or even a finalist. I thought for sure that that was going to win the prize.
So that's one good thing about this choice.
#15NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:17pmFoote's Cycle wasn't even a finalist? Wow.
#16NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:19pm
Well I, for one, am ecstatic over this. I am surprised though because I didn't think it was eligible anymore.
And this just popped into my head: RENT was also directed by Grief.
"If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it." -Stephen Colbert
#17NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:23pm
Regarding the above posts: Seriously? When did everyone evolve into "Next to Normal" haters?
Whatever, I'm thrilled. Up there with "Caroline, or Change" for best musical(s) of the past decade as far as I'm concerned. Couldn't be happier.
#18NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:23pmharris007, although they stretched the rules for Ruined, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama is awarded "for a distinguished play by an American playwright, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life." Billy Elliot wasn't written by Americans, and certainly doesn't deal with American life.
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
#19NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:24pm
I'm surprised. I wasn't even aware it was in the running. I'm very pleased for them, though. I love the show and am happy that it has received so much success.
I do wish NEXT FALL had been a finalist, and I hope ORPHAN'S HOME still plans to come to Broadway despite not being recognized. I would love to see it.
#20NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:24pm
What's interesting is that, according to the citation, the Pulitzer committee didn't even have NEXT TO NORMAL on their shortlist and either picked one of the other nominees or opted for no award this year at all.
The Pulitzer Board stepped in and overruled them.
http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2010-Drama
Tonya Pinkins: Then we had a "Lot's Wife" last June that was my personal favorite. I'm still trying to get them to let me sing it at some performance where we get to sing an excerpt that's gone.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
#21NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:24pmgivesmevoice. Indeed about Billy. And it's rubbish. :P
#22NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:25pmDidn't see this coming, but still: well deserved! Congrats to the N2N team.
#23NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:25pmCongratulations to them! That's amazing...totally unexpected, but amazing.
Luscious
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/20/05
#24NEXT TO NORMAL wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Posted: 4/12/10 at 3:25pmIt should have gone to YANK.
