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Next to Normal is billed as” an emotional powerhouse of a musical about a family trying to take care of themselves and each other” and features a mother's struggle with bipolar disorder, her treatment, and their impact on her family.
Tom Kitt, composer and co-orchestrator, received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as two Tony awards for Best Score and Best Orchestrations (with Michael Starobin) for Next to Normal. His music for Next to Normal also received the 2009 Frederick Loewe Award for Dramatic Composition and an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Score. Kitt is also responsible for the music supervision, arrangements, and orchestrations for Green Day's American Idiot on Broadway.
Brian Yorkey, librettist and lyricist, received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as the 2009 Tony Award for Best Score for Next to Normal. Brian was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Next to Normal, and his work on the show earned him the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Score.
The six-actor cast includes Alice Ripley (Diana), Brian d'Arcy James (Dan), Kyle Dean Massey (Gabe), Jennifer Damiano (Natalie), Adam Chanler-Berat (Henry), and Louis Hobson (Dr. Madden/Dr. Fine).
JULIET ROSS: Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, thank you for speaking
with me today. Why don't we start with how you conceived the show.
BRIAN YORKEY: We were in a musical theater songwriter's workshop … and the final project for the first year was the 10-minute musical. We were looking for something a little bit different, a more challenging topic. I saw a report on Dateline about ECT, which I didn't know was still practiced. I learned a lot about it just from that report—enough to make me call Tom and say, “What about a musical about a woman who suffered from depression her whole life and has to go through ECT?”
ROSS: How did you research bipolar disorder from there? Your portrayal of it is really spot-on.
YORKEY: We did a lot of research over a number of years. I started