Next to Normal, by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey

How often do you encounter a musical that makes good reading too? With music by Tom Kitt, and lyrics and book by Brian Yorkey, Next to Normal won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2010. This isn’t typical musical fare with comedy, romance, a few big production numbers, and a happy ending. Next to Normal has most of those but also large doses of family dysfunction and tragedy. The comedy is dark, the romance is somewhat tortured, and the happy ending comes in a minor key: there’s hope, but no guarantee.

The story begins on a note of normalcy: a husband, wife and their teen son and daughter are busily preparing for another day of work and school. But the upbeat music comes to a crashing halt as the mother’s preparation of sandwiches takes a turn that shows she has mental health issues. I won’t give away the plot twists, but viewers or readers will also soon discover that everything is not as it seems in the family, that a tragedy haunts their past and present.

The story progresses to reveal a series of inconclusive therapy sessions and drug treatments, a strained marriage, and a daughter whose history of feeling unloved contaminates her potential relationship. It’s rough stuff, but Yorkey’s clever treatment also provides a share of bittersweet laughs along the way. Kitt’s score of rock numbers and ballads provides energy, humor, and a fast pace that keeps the story moving and vital even at its darkest moments. The finish is certainly not the typical happy ending, but it’s hopeful and honest.

By all means catch Next to Normal if it is produced somewhere near you. But if not, stop in at the library and grab the libretto or the CD of the Broadway production, featuring an amazing performance by Alice Ripley as the mother. You’ll be able to picture the story easily as you take in this moving and potent drama with subject matter that is relevant to so many modern lives. If you or your family have struggled with even minor mental health challenges or the difficulties of finding the right prescription or treatment for those problems, you need to experience Next to Normal, where the underlying message is that families who face challenges are in many ways the most normal of all.

Check the availability of the Next to Normal libretto in the WRL catalog

Or get the audio CD of the Broadway production