Yes. Spend some of your hard-earned money and go see the musical “Next to Normal” at the 5th Avenue Theatre and celebrate the fact that a Pulitzer Prize winning play was created here.
And not just here in the northwest, but at Village Theatre, which is based in Issaquah but also performs at the Everett Performing Arts Center.
Brian Yorkey, VT’s associate artistic director for seven years, received the Pulitzer for drama in 2010 as well as the 2009 Tony Award for Best Score for “Next to Normal,” which got is start as a Village Originals production.
The story about a family dealing with tragedy and a mother who is bipolar and delusional is edgy with moments of cutting snarkiness that are funny and biting. The music is sexy and contemporary.
As the mom Diana, Alice Ripley is spellbinding, taking us again and again down her rabbit hole of madness. She fights each plummet with her own style and sense of humor.
The father, Dan, played by the sweet-voiced and earnest Asa Somers, fights to hold onto his family and wife but in the end winds up grasping at smoke. Gabe the son, played by Curt Hansen, is haunting, and daughter Natalie, neglected and forgotten, is full of anger and angst and portrayed in a powerhouse performance by Emma Hunton.
Everett Village Theatre KIDSTAGE alumn Caitlin Kinnunen is Natalie’s understudy. She was cast in “Spring Awakening” on Broadway a couple years back, about age 16, and Kinnunen is now touring with “Next to Normal”.
Preston Sadleir played Henry, the boy in love with Natalie and the kind of friend every young angst-ridden woman should have. Jeremy Kushnier gave Dr. Madden just the right amount of creep.
So celebrate this home-grown success and that new musical theater can send a message that might make us squirm a bit but also make us laugh and shed some tears.
“Next to Normal” plays through March 13 at The 5th Avenue Theatre, 1308 Fifth Ave., Seattle.
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