Show guide
Next to Normal
Next to Normal is a raw, emotionally searching rock musical about a suburban family reckoning with mental illness. It brought a stark, contemporary subject to Broadway in a score that pulses with genuine anguish and hard-won hope.
- Broadway premiere
- 2009
- Music by
- Tom Kitt
- Genre
- Drama
- Setting
- 2000s
Next to Normal: quick answers
What is Next to Normal about?
- Next to Normal follows Diana Goodman, a suburban mother living with worsening bipolar disorder, and the toll her illness and treatment take on her husband, her teenage daughter, and the family's grief.
When did Next to Normal open on Broadway?
- Next to Normal opened on Broadway on April 15, 2009, at the Booth Theatre, after an Off-Broadway run at Second Stage Theatre in 2008. It played 734 performances before closing on January 16, 2011.
What kind of musical is Next to Normal?
- Next to Normal is a contemporary rock musical drama with an original score by Tom Kitt and book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey. It deals with grief, depression, and modern psychiatry, and it won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, only the eighth musical to do so.
Where and when is Next to Normal set?
- Next to Normal is set in the Goodman family's home in suburban America.
Has Next to Normal played in London's West End?
- Next to Normal had its London premiere at the Donmar Warehouse in 2023, then transferred to the West End's Wyndham's Theatre in June 2024, with Caissie Levy as Diana.
The story of Next to Normal
Set in a present-day American suburb, Next to Normal centers on a mother struggling with bipolar disorder and the ripple effects her illness has on her husband, her teenage children, and her own sense of self. The show does not shy away from difficult territory, including grief, medication, and the strain mental illness places on a family trying to hold itself together.
Rather than offering easy resolutions, the musical treats its characters with compassion and honesty, following them through diagnosis, treatment, and the slow, uneven work of finding a way forward. It is as much about the family around the patient as it is about the illness itself.
The music and the makers
Composer Tom Kitt wrote a score that draws on contemporary rock and pop idioms, using electric guitars and driving rhythms to capture the volatility of the story's emotional terrain. The music shifts fluidly between intimate, aching ballads and explosive full-band numbers that mirror the characters' internal chaos.
As a piece of musical theatre, Next to Normal is often cited for how seriously it takes its dramatic material, using the conventions of the rock musical not for spectacle but to dig into psychological and emotional truth.
Next to Normal on Broadway
Next to Normal opened on Broadway in the late 2000s and stood out immediately for tackling mental illness with unusual candor in a genre often associated with lighter fare. It found a devoted audience among theatergoers hungry for contemporary, issue-driven drama set to a rock score.
The show's willingness to sit with difficult emotional truths, rather than resolve them neatly, helped it earn a lasting reputation as one of the more daring dramatic musicals of its era, admired for treating its audience as capable of handling complexity.
Next to Normal: frequently asked questions
When did Next to Normal open on Broadway?
Next to Normal opened on Broadway in 2009.
Who composed Next to Normal?
Tom Kitt wrote the music for this contemporary rock musical.
What is Next to Normal about?
It follows a suburban mother living with bipolar disorder and the effect her illness has on her husband and children.
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