David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
Tackling stigma from the stage
by Nancy Tobin. bp Magazine
Fall 2009 Issue
Editor?s note: The original Broadway musical Next to Normal opened in April at New York City?s famed Booth Theatre to rave reviews and excited audiences. With its theme of family dysfunction and a suburban mother with bipolar disorder as the main character, Next to Normal seemed an unlikely vehicle to become a smash hit. The show received 11 Tony nominations for the 2009 season and won three Tonys at the June 7 awards ceremony at Radio City Music Hall. The Tonys recognize achievement for live American performances on Broadway and have been awarded annually in New York for 63 years.
A crowd of perhaps 150 theatre patrons gathers expectantly outside New York?s Booth Theatre stage door, waiting for members of the six-person cast of Next to Normal to emerge. Shifting weight, chatting excitedly, the diverse group holds programs, cell phones, T-shirts, and cameras, ready to gather autographs and photos. They will not be disappointed.
When a beaming Alice Ripley steps outside, a roar of applause greets the actor who, just 20 minutes earlier, took her bows onstage in the musical?s central role of Diana Goodman. Ripley graciously meets and speaks to every person who has waited, as she does after each of eight weekly performances.
How can it be that a rock opera?about a suburban mom whose bipolar disorder roils her family?s life?can win Broadway?s buzz, enjoy critical success, and boast booming ticket sales at the same time?
?We tried to write a musical that goes to the heart of the human condition? one that is about healing, that shows a family trying to improve,? says composer Tom Kitt during a telephone interview. ?There is a lot of hope in this show. That?s the way life is,? he says.
Next to Normal?s trip to Broadway had an inconspicuous start and followed an indirect path. The production that opened in New York has a different name, shape, and format from the 10-minute musical sketch that Kitt and lyricist Brian Yorkey wrote as the final project for a workshop more than 11 years ago.
?We picked the subject of bipolar disorder for the project because it was different and challenging and very compelling to us,? says Yorkey, who with Kitt won the Tony for Best Original Score. ?We thought people would hate it, but they responded to it positively from the very first. Really, at every step along the way, we kept hearing that same strong response and that?s what kept it and us moving.?
The two collaborators have been writing music and lyrics together since they met as undergraduates at Columbia University 15 years ago. They describe their working system as ?seamless? and, quite literally, speak with a single voice. They agree that Hair, Tommy, and more recently, Rent?another rock opera built around a contemporary slice of life?are the Broadway forbears of Next to Normal. Kitt, with Michael Starobin, also won a Tony for Best Orchestrations.
?Exposing the stigma of mental illness is one of the reasons we wrote the show, why we pursued telling this story,? says Yorkey. ?We both feel that an awful lot of people try to live up to a standard of what they consider ?normal? and that actually can be as destructive as anything.?
Kitt and Yorkey say that they worked hard to ensure that Diana?s bipolar symptoms were both comprehensible to audiences and accurately portrayed. ?What she has, as her doctor says during the show, is a collection of symptoms,? Yorkey adds. ?Oftentimes, the best a doctor can do is to put a name to those symptoms and try to treat it, as he does.?
A pair of psychiatrists introduced into the script as influential characters are convincingly played by a single actor (Louis Hobson). In these well-researched roles, each physician proposes a different treatment strategy for the frayed Alice. Meanwhile, her long-suffering and caring husband Dan (played by J. Robert Spencer) loves his wife?s vibrancy and energy, but longs for a peaceful household and, once in a while, a calm dinner table for the family. Dan is steadfast in promoting treatment?any treatment?that will calm his wife?s mania.
The rock opera?s broad appeal flows from its fresh and honestly told story; varied, original music; outstanding stage direction, and glowing performances. Its plot moves along swiftly?negotiating neatly around a couple of audience-jolting surprises. Lyrics from more than 30 original songs are purred, coaxed, cried, begged, and belted out by uniformly excellent performers.
Looking back, says Kitt, ?we wanted to write something earthbound from the beginning.? He adds: ?We both have had experience with bipolar in our own lives and we saw that creating a musical about bipolar was a new way to pull the audience in. We feel that the show is filled with empathy and a mixture of sadness, hope, and reality.?
As they developed music, story, and lyrics, Kitt and Yorkey each spoke with numerous individuals who live with bipolar every day; both read a tremendous amount on the topic ?until the medical literature got over our heads,? says Yorkey. ?Both a psychiatrist and psychologist read every draft along the way and conferred about how the doctor character(s) on the stage would approach treating Diana.
?One thing we said early on?and it was tough to get it as right as we could?was that we were not interested in setting up a straw man of a doctor who was part of the problem,? says Yorkey. ?The story that was interesting and most compelling to us was about the very competent doctors who are still struggling with finding the treatments that are right for their patients.
?There were people who suggested that we make Diana an artist, a creative person, but we chose to make her an ordinary woman,? Yorkey continues. ?Not everybody who becomes a great artist has this disorder and not every-body who has bipolar is creative.?
As for the music, Kitt says that there were those who thought it needed to be ?kooky or dissonant, but that kind of music is outside of Diana?s character. People with bp . . .they are not ?off,? or kooky, or dissonant. I wanted the music to be emotional and to bring the audience into the characters. A Broadway musical about bipolar disorder is not to everyone?s taste; it resonates because people have a real emotional experience.?
To say that Ripley merely understands Diana is an understatement.
?I am living Diana all the time? says Ripley, who received the 2009 Tony for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical. ?Diana is all-encompassing physically, emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually.? She recounts to bp Magazine how she had a ?Diana moment? on the subway just the other day:
?I got on the E train at 53rd and it was mobbed, of course, around the doors especially, but there was space in the middle of the car. So I said in a loud voice, ?Would everyone move back?it doesn?t take much intelligence to see there is room in the center of this car!?
??Who said that,? I thought. ?Did I say that?? Now Alice would never have done that; she would have thought it inside, and would have wanted to say it. But Diana is in me completely now. She is direct and speaks her mind. I heard myself saying out loud what Diana would have said and I realize there is nothing wrong with that. I take my Alice coat off and Diana is right there underneath.?
As an actor, Ripley says she is thrilled that Diana is not a woman who is suffering in silence. ?There has been nothing like this in terms of roles for women,? she insists. ?Diana?s role is more than ready for its time. She is a strong woman and in the face of despair she makes difficult decisions for the betterment of everyone around her, and for herself as well.?
Indeed, the universality of the role comes from Diana?s pain, Ripley says. ?It is not about suppressed feminism, but about suppressed grief. I believe that Diana is a wild woman who can?t tame herself. She just can?t do it for herself. Others step in to help her and for the most part, she lets that happen.
?My job as an actor is to engage my third eye, to take me into Diana, and now I don?t know how to stop. I?m crying through the entire show and I go home to hydrotherapy, salt baths, saline solutions, and ice, ice, ice. I eat really healthy things. I watch my sugar intake. I don?t smoke or drink,? Ripley says, adding that the role exhausts her?physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Like Kitt and Yorkey, Ripley, too, has bipolar disorder in her family tree. ?I have an uncle?my mother?s brother?who has bipolar,? she says. ?He?s handsome and lovable, the life of the party whom everyone wants to be near. Growing up, it was mostly the mania that I saw, though. The despair?that was hidden from me.?
Ripley?s mother and uncle have finally found peace with each other, she says. ?It was very sad. Both of them lost their spouses not long ago, and now are able to laugh and cry together. They?re also caring for my grandmother together and taking turns managing the household.?
Despite the rigors of the role, Ripley says that like Kitt and Yorkey, she is incredibly happy, living and working in the moment. She muses that someday she?d like to play the role in London, and perhaps on tour as well.
?I can?t believe this is real,? says Ripley two hours before a performance, finally explaining the glittery gold sheath she has worn to the interview with bp Magazine. Ripley reveals that she has just returned from an audition for a role in the Sex in the City movie sequel, now headed into production. She admits to a bit of excitement, though she describes the part as ?not big.? After living and working as a professional actor and musician for two decades, the success of Next to Normal and the awards Ripley has garnered have her feeling a bit giddy. She adds, however, that the show?s nightly audiences make it all real.
?I need the audience to believe it; I feed off the audience like a vulture. I love the people who wait to talk to me after the show.
?There was a kid, a young man with a cleft palate who thanked me for telling his story. That kid saw himself as Diana. Here I am, a white girl with blue eyes from Ohio, and he saw himself in that role!? She adds emphatically, ?I think we are performing a public service!?
Ripley is not the only member of the production to feel connected to the musical?s core about coming to terms with mental illness. Cast members learned about issues of bipolar disorder as they studied for their roles. Knowing that the play?s success has increased public awareness is shared by each of the six actors and many on the production team, Ripley says.
Kitt and Yorkey are quick to credit the determination and insight of director Michael Greif (Rent, Grey Gardens) and lead producer David Stone (Wicked). ?When the show didn?t work right out of the gate,? Yorkey says, ?David [Stone] stuck with it and nurtured it along until it finally did work.?
Next to Normal opened at the off-Broadway Second Stage Theatre in January 2008. During its two-month run there, it underwent constant revision by the creative team. Spring and summer came and went and Kitt, Yorkey, and Greif were still reworking the script, music, and lyrics ahead of the scheduled opening that fall at Washington?s Arena Stage. Nine songs were either deleted or heavily reworked; several brand new ones were added as well. Adjustments in lyrics and the script continued to be made as the show played to Washington audiences.
When the significantly revised Next to Normal returned to New York in April?this time on Broadway?it was to raves.
?David Stone did something that took a lot of risk,? says Yorkey. ?He opened a musical on Broadway about mental illness in the middle of a recession. That is probably not what they tell you to do in producing school. He did it because he believed in the show and he thought it deserved a chance.
?Early on in previews of the show,? Yorkey remembers, ?Tom and I were standing in the back as people were filing out and this young guy approach-ed us?17 or 18?and very sweet looking. He told us that he had been diagnosed with bp about three months earlier and hadn?t been able to explain to his friends what it was, or what it was like, and then he started to cry, and Tom and I started to cry.
?That happened before the show opened, and it was at that point that I said, ?I don?t care what the critics say, what happens from here.? If the show can do that, it?s been worthwhile.?
Buy one or more copies of the Fall 2009 issue of bp Magazine.
Subscribe to bp Magazine.
by Nancy Tobin. bp Magazine
Fall 2009 Issue
Editor?s note: The original Broadway musical Next to Normal opened in April at New York City?s famed Booth Theatre to rave reviews and excited audiences. With its theme of family dysfunction and a suburban mother with bipolar disorder as the main character, Next to Normal seemed an unlikely vehicle to become a smash hit. The show received 11 Tony nominations for the 2009 season and won three Tonys at the June 7 awards ceremony at Radio City Music Hall. The Tonys recognize achievement for live American performances on Broadway and have been awarded annually in New York for 63 years.
A crowd of perhaps 150 theatre patrons gathers expectantly outside New York?s Booth Theatre stage door, waiting for members of the six-person cast of Next to Normal to emerge. Shifting weight, chatting excitedly, the diverse group holds programs, cell phones, T-shirts, and cameras, ready to gather autographs and photos. They will not be disappointed.
When a beaming Alice Ripley steps outside, a roar of applause greets the actor who, just 20 minutes earlier, took her bows onstage in the musical?s central role of Diana Goodman. Ripley graciously meets and speaks to every person who has waited, as she does after each of eight weekly performances.
How can it be that a rock opera?about a suburban mom whose bipolar disorder roils her family?s life?can win Broadway?s buzz, enjoy critical success, and boast booming ticket sales at the same time?
?We tried to write a musical that goes to the heart of the human condition? one that is about healing, that shows a family trying to improve,? says composer Tom Kitt during a telephone interview. ?There is a lot of hope in this show. That?s the way life is,? he says.
Next to Normal?s trip to Broadway had an inconspicuous start and followed an indirect path. The production that opened in New York has a different name, shape, and format from the 10-minute musical sketch that Kitt and lyricist Brian Yorkey wrote as the final project for a workshop more than 11 years ago.
?We picked the subject of bipolar disorder for the project because it was different and challenging and very compelling to us,? says Yorkey, who with Kitt won the Tony for Best Original Score. ?We thought people would hate it, but they responded to it positively from the very first. Really, at every step along the way, we kept hearing that same strong response and that?s what kept it and us moving.?
The two collaborators have been writing music and lyrics together since they met as undergraduates at Columbia University 15 years ago. They describe their working system as ?seamless? and, quite literally, speak with a single voice. They agree that Hair, Tommy, and more recently, Rent?another rock opera built around a contemporary slice of life?are the Broadway forbears of Next to Normal. Kitt, with Michael Starobin, also won a Tony for Best Orchestrations.
?Exposing the stigma of mental illness is one of the reasons we wrote the show, why we pursued telling this story,? says Yorkey. ?We both feel that an awful lot of people try to live up to a standard of what they consider ?normal? and that actually can be as destructive as anything.?
Kitt and Yorkey say that they worked hard to ensure that Diana?s bipolar symptoms were both comprehensible to audiences and accurately portrayed. ?What she has, as her doctor says during the show, is a collection of symptoms,? Yorkey adds. ?Oftentimes, the best a doctor can do is to put a name to those symptoms and try to treat it, as he does.?
A pair of psychiatrists introduced into the script as influential characters are convincingly played by a single actor (Louis Hobson). In these well-researched roles, each physician proposes a different treatment strategy for the frayed Alice. Meanwhile, her long-suffering and caring husband Dan (played by J. Robert Spencer) loves his wife?s vibrancy and energy, but longs for a peaceful household and, once in a while, a calm dinner table for the family. Dan is steadfast in promoting treatment?any treatment?that will calm his wife?s mania.
The rock opera?s broad appeal flows from its fresh and honestly told story; varied, original music; outstanding stage direction, and glowing performances. Its plot moves along swiftly?negotiating neatly around a couple of audience-jolting surprises. Lyrics from more than 30 original songs are purred, coaxed, cried, begged, and belted out by uniformly excellent performers.
Looking back, says Kitt, ?we wanted to write something earthbound from the beginning.? He adds: ?We both have had experience with bipolar in our own lives and we saw that creating a musical about bipolar was a new way to pull the audience in. We feel that the show is filled with empathy and a mixture of sadness, hope, and reality.?
As they developed music, story, and lyrics, Kitt and Yorkey each spoke with numerous individuals who live with bipolar every day; both read a tremendous amount on the topic ?until the medical literature got over our heads,? says Yorkey. ?Both a psychiatrist and psychologist read every draft along the way and conferred about how the doctor character(s) on the stage would approach treating Diana.
?One thing we said early on?and it was tough to get it as right as we could?was that we were not interested in setting up a straw man of a doctor who was part of the problem,? says Yorkey. ?The story that was interesting and most compelling to us was about the very competent doctors who are still struggling with finding the treatments that are right for their patients.
?There were people who suggested that we make Diana an artist, a creative person, but we chose to make her an ordinary woman,? Yorkey continues. ?Not everybody who becomes a great artist has this disorder and not every-body who has bipolar is creative.?
As for the music, Kitt says that there were those who thought it needed to be ?kooky or dissonant, but that kind of music is outside of Diana?s character. People with bp . . .they are not ?off,? or kooky, or dissonant. I wanted the music to be emotional and to bring the audience into the characters. A Broadway musical about bipolar disorder is not to everyone?s taste; it resonates because people have a real emotional experience.?
To say that Ripley merely understands Diana is an understatement.
?I am living Diana all the time? says Ripley, who received the 2009 Tony for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical. ?Diana is all-encompassing physically, emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually.? She recounts to bp Magazine how she had a ?Diana moment? on the subway just the other day:
?I got on the E train at 53rd and it was mobbed, of course, around the doors especially, but there was space in the middle of the car. So I said in a loud voice, ?Would everyone move back?it doesn?t take much intelligence to see there is room in the center of this car!?
??Who said that,? I thought. ?Did I say that?? Now Alice would never have done that; she would have thought it inside, and would have wanted to say it. But Diana is in me completely now. She is direct and speaks her mind. I heard myself saying out loud what Diana would have said and I realize there is nothing wrong with that. I take my Alice coat off and Diana is right there underneath.?
As an actor, Ripley says she is thrilled that Diana is not a woman who is suffering in silence. ?There has been nothing like this in terms of roles for women,? she insists. ?Diana?s role is more than ready for its time. She is a strong woman and in the face of despair she makes difficult decisions for the betterment of everyone around her, and for herself as well.?
Indeed, the universality of the role comes from Diana?s pain, Ripley says. ?It is not about suppressed feminism, but about suppressed grief. I believe that Diana is a wild woman who can?t tame herself. She just can?t do it for herself. Others step in to help her and for the most part, she lets that happen.
?My job as an actor is to engage my third eye, to take me into Diana, and now I don?t know how to stop. I?m crying through the entire show and I go home to hydrotherapy, salt baths, saline solutions, and ice, ice, ice. I eat really healthy things. I watch my sugar intake. I don?t smoke or drink,? Ripley says, adding that the role exhausts her?physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Like Kitt and Yorkey, Ripley, too, has bipolar disorder in her family tree. ?I have an uncle?my mother?s brother?who has bipolar,? she says. ?He?s handsome and lovable, the life of the party whom everyone wants to be near. Growing up, it was mostly the mania that I saw, though. The despair?that was hidden from me.?
Ripley?s mother and uncle have finally found peace with each other, she says. ?It was very sad. Both of them lost their spouses not long ago, and now are able to laugh and cry together. They?re also caring for my grandmother together and taking turns managing the household.?
Despite the rigors of the role, Ripley says that like Kitt and Yorkey, she is incredibly happy, living and working in the moment. She muses that someday she?d like to play the role in London, and perhaps on tour as well.
?I can?t believe this is real,? says Ripley two hours before a performance, finally explaining the glittery gold sheath she has worn to the interview with bp Magazine. Ripley reveals that she has just returned from an audition for a role in the Sex in the City movie sequel, now headed into production. She admits to a bit of excitement, though she describes the part as ?not big.? After living and working as a professional actor and musician for two decades, the success of Next to Normal and the awards Ripley has garnered have her feeling a bit giddy. She adds, however, that the show?s nightly audiences make it all real.
?I need the audience to believe it; I feed off the audience like a vulture. I love the people who wait to talk to me after the show.
?There was a kid, a young man with a cleft palate who thanked me for telling his story. That kid saw himself as Diana. Here I am, a white girl with blue eyes from Ohio, and he saw himself in that role!? She adds emphatically, ?I think we are performing a public service!?
Ripley is not the only member of the production to feel connected to the musical?s core about coming to terms with mental illness. Cast members learned about issues of bipolar disorder as they studied for their roles. Knowing that the play?s success has increased public awareness is shared by each of the six actors and many on the production team, Ripley says.
Kitt and Yorkey are quick to credit the determination and insight of director Michael Greif (Rent, Grey Gardens) and lead producer David Stone (Wicked). ?When the show didn?t work right out of the gate,? Yorkey says, ?David [Stone] stuck with it and nurtured it along until it finally did work.?
Next to Normal opened at the off-Broadway Second Stage Theatre in January 2008. During its two-month run there, it underwent constant revision by the creative team. Spring and summer came and went and Kitt, Yorkey, and Greif were still reworking the script, music, and lyrics ahead of the scheduled opening that fall at Washington?s Arena Stage. Nine songs were either deleted or heavily reworked; several brand new ones were added as well. Adjustments in lyrics and the script continued to be made as the show played to Washington audiences.
When the significantly revised Next to Normal returned to New York in April?this time on Broadway?it was to raves.
?David Stone did something that took a lot of risk,? says Yorkey. ?He opened a musical on Broadway about mental illness in the middle of a recession. That is probably not what they tell you to do in producing school. He did it because he believed in the show and he thought it deserved a chance.
?Early on in previews of the show,? Yorkey remembers, ?Tom and I were standing in the back as people were filing out and this young guy approach-ed us?17 or 18?and very sweet looking. He told us that he had been diagnosed with bp about three months earlier and hadn?t been able to explain to his friends what it was, or what it was like, and then he started to cry, and Tom and I started to cry.
?That happened before the show opened, and it was at that point that I said, ?I don?t care what the critics say, what happens from here.? If the show can do that, it?s been worthwhile.?
Buy one or more copies of the Fall 2009 issue of bp Magazine.
Subscribe to bp Magazine.
