Next to Normal is a contemporary musical that explores how one suburban household copes with crisis. With provocative lyrics, and an electrifying score of more than 30 original songs, Next to Normal shows how far two parents will go to keep themselves sane and their family's world intact.
No show on Broadway right now makes as direct a grab for the heart — or wrings it as thoroughly — as “Next to Normal” does. This brave, breathtaking musical, which opened Wednesday night at the Booth Theater, focuses squarely on the pain that cripples the members of a suburban family, and never for a minute does it let you escape the anguish at the core of their lives. “Next to Normal” does not, in other words, qualify as your standard feel-good musical. Instead this portrait of a manic-depressive mother and the people she loves and damages is something much more: a feel-everything musical, which asks you, with operatic force, to discover the liberation in knowing where it hurts.
The downside is that we never really experience the terrors lurking inside a tortured mind. Instead, the show focuses on the grief that played a central role in Diana's collapse and continues to haunt her. When the subject of her sorrow delivers the song 'I'm Alive,' the threat to her sanity is clear. This darkness is the show's most intriguing aspect, as if it were referencing Daphne du Maurier rather than the DSM. It's also the most underdeveloped and sentimentally resolved. For behind its surface grimness, 'Next to Normal' ends up relying on soothing conventions.
| 2008 | Off-Broadway |
Original Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
| 2009 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
| 2010 | US Tour |
1st National Tour US Tour |
| 2010 | US Tour |
2nd National Tour US Tour |
| 2013 |
Weston Playhouse Production |
|
| 2020 | Washington, DC (Regional) |
Kennedy Center Broadway Center Stage Production Washington, DC (Regional) |
| 2024 | West End |
West End |
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | The Pulitzer Prize | The Pulitzer Prize for Drama | Tom Kitt |
| 2009 | BroadwayWorld Awards | Best Leading Actress in a Musical | Alice Ripley |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Book of a Musical | Brian Yorkey |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Direction of a Musical | Michael Greif |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Lighting Design of a Musical | Kevin Adams |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | David Stone |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Ellen Richard |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Carole Rothman |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Second Stage Theatre |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Patrick Catullo |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | Barbara Whitman |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Musical | James L. Nederlander |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Orchestrations | Michael Starobin |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Orchestrations | Tom Kitt |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Orchestrations | Michael Starobin |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Orchestrations | Tom Kitt |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre | Tom Kitt |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre | Brian Yorkey |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical | J. Robert Spencer |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical | Jennifer Damiano |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical | Alice Ripley |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Scenic Design of a Musical | Mark Wendland |
| 2009 | Tony Awards | Best Sound Design of a Musical | Brian Ronan |
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