Next to Normal

Brian Yorkey, Tom Kitt

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781559363709
• eBook ISBN: 9781559366625
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

Winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

“Rock is alive and rolling like thunder in Next to Normal. It’s the best musical of the season by a mile...an emotional powerhouse with a fire in its soul and a wicked wit that burns just as fiercely.”—Rolling Stone

“No show on Broadway right now makes as a direct grab for the heart—or wrings it as thoroughly—as Next to Normal does. . . . [It] 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.”—Ben Brantley, The New York Times

Winner of three 2009 Tony Awards, including Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre, Next to Normal is also available in an original cast recording. It was named Best Musical of the Season by Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times.

Brian Yorkey received the 2009 Tony Award for Best Original Score for his work on Next to Normal and was also nominated for Best Book of a Musical. His other credits include Making Tracks and Time After Time.

Tom Kitt received two 2009 Tony Awards for Best Original Score and Best Orchestrations for Next to Normal. He also composed the music for High Fidelity and From Up Here. His string arrangements appear on the new Green Day album 21st Century Breakdown, and he is the leader of the Tom Kitt Band.

act one

prelude (light)

Music.

Then the lights go out.

A moment, and Diana turns on a light. She sits alone in a chair, waiting.

Gabe enters.

GABE: What are you doing up? It’s three-thirty.

just another day

DIANA:

It’s the seventh night this week I’ve sat till morning . . .

GABE: Great. Here we go.

DIANA:

Imagining the ways you might have died.

GABE: Ah, yes, and tonight’s winner is?

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DIANA:

In a freak September ice storm with no warning . . .

GABE: Because that happens.

DIANA:

There’s a gang war, there’s a bird flu, trains collide.

GABE: What’d we say about watching the news?

DIANA:

Now you act all sweet and surly,
But you swore you’d come home early
And you lied.

GABE: You gotta let go, Mom—I’m almost eighteen.
DIANA: Are you snorting coke?
GABE: Not at the moment.
DAN (Off): Who’s up at this hour?
DIANA: Your father. Go. Up the back way.
GABE (Going): Why does he hate me?
DIANA: Because you’re a little twat.
GABE: You can’t call me a twat.

(But she shoos him off as Dan enters.)

DAN: Everything okay? I heard voices.

DIANA: Just me. Talking to myself, you know. Now you head on upstairs—I’ll be up for sex in a minute.

DAN: You’ll . . . uh . . . are you sure you’re okay?

DIANA: Go.

(She ushers him off, then sings:)

They’re the perfect loving fam’ly, so adoring . . .
And I love them ev’ry day of ev’ry week.
So my son’s a little shit, my husband’s boring,
And my daughter, though a genius, is a freak.
Still I help them love each other
Father, mother, sister, brother,
Cheek to cheek!

(Natalie enters, the way Gabe just left, with a pile of books and a tallboy of Red Bull, muttering to herself.)

Natalie? It’s four in the morning—is everything okay?

NATALIE: Everything’s great. Why wouldn’t it be great? It’s great. I’ve just got three more chapters of calculus, a physics problem set, a history quiz and two pages on floral imagery in Flowers for Algernon which is like duh. Everything’s so under control it’s just like . . . calm.

(She gulps from the can.)

DIANA: Honey, you need to slow down, take some time for yourself. I’m going to have sex with your father.

NATALIE: Great. Thanks. I’m so glad I know that.

(Diana goes; Natalie drops the books on a table and sings:)

So it’s times like these I wonder how I take it,
And if other fam’lies live the way we do—
If they love each other, or if they just fake it,
And if other daughters feel like I feel, too.

’Cause some days I think I’m dying
But I’m really only trying to get through.

(Gabe is in his room, before a mirror, getting dressed for the day.)

GABE:

For just another day . . .
For another stolen hour
When the world will feel my power and obey.

GABE AND NATALIE:

It’s just another day . . .

GABE:

Feeling like I’ll live forever . . .

NATALIE:

Feeling like this feeling never goes away . . .

GABE AND NATALIE:

For just another day.

(Lights. It’s later.

In the bedroom, Dan holds Diana, after.)

DAN: That was great, wasn’t it? It was great. Oh Christ, I’m late.

DIANA: That’ll teach you to take a whole ten minutes.

DAN: Sorry, what?

DIANA: I said, isn’t it a beautiful day?

DAN: Okay. Sure. I mean, it’s cloudy, and raining, and really cold for September, but beautiful.

DIANA: Makes you want to dive in with both feet, doesn’t it?

DAN: Absolutely.

(Diana goes. Dan speaks to us:)

I never know what she’s talking about.

(He sings:)

When it’s up to you to hold your house together . . .
A house you built with patience and with care . . .
But you’re grappling with that gray and rainy weather,
And you’re living on a latte and a prayer—

(Diana bustles in to the kitchen.)

DAN...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• production history
• characters
• songs
• act one - prelude (light)
• act two
• Copyright Page