This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Tommy: Preamble. Yeah. We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish... You know, this is an American preamble. We, the people, as JFK?

[0:15] Jimi: Was that him? No, it's the preamble of the Constitution.

[0:19] Tommy: Oh, okay. This exemplifies our American and Britishness. It's a thing you have absolutely no reason to know, and a thing that, like, I have a song in my brain that lets me sing the whole thing like you remember your ABCs. Wow. Like, Alabama, Arkansas...

[0:37] Jimi: Yeah, but let me tell you, I don't have the song that remembers the states, but I do have the song that remembers the preamble of the Constitution in my brain.

[0:47] Tommy: That's great. You're such a lucky and fortunate human being. Part of it has to do with it's from Schoolhouse Rock, and that means it was written by Aarons and Flaherty, so I think it just is a better song than Alabama.

[0:59] Jimi: I mean, the only reason, again, I've ever heard of it is The Simpsons.

[1:07] Tommy: Welcome to Jim and Tomic's Musical Theatre Happy Hour. I'm Tommy.

[1:10] Jimi: And I'm Jimi, and this is the only musical theatre podcast with pas de bourrée.

[1:15] Tommy: And IPAs. Here, we take about your favourite shows, muddle them together with a shot of buffoonery, and pour you a refreshing glass of musical theatre conversation.

[1:26] Jimi: Jimmy, you've got a quiz question for us.

[1:33] Tommy: I do. The Tony-winning star from this musical caused Jeff Bowen to say the word fierce for the first and second time. What show?

[1:42] Jimi: What could it be? I know what it is. Do you know what it is?

[1:45] Tommy: I think I do, but you tell me just in case.

[1:51] Jimi: It's Next to Normal.

[1:58] Tommy: I'm a loving family, so adoring, and I love them every day of every week.

[2:06] Jimi: So my son's a little shit, my husband's boring, and my daughter, though a genius, is a freak.

[2:14] Tommy: Still I help them love each other, father, mother, sister, brother, cheek to cheek.

[2:18] Jimi: Natalie, it's four in the morning. Is everything okay?

[2:23] Tommy: Everything's great. Why wouldn't it be great? It's great.

[2:28] Jimi: Honey, you need to slow down. Take some time for yourself.

[2:35] Tommy: I'm going to have sex with your father. Great. Thanks. I'm so glad I know that.

[2:44] Jimi: So it's times like these I wonder how I take it. And if other families live the way we do.

[2:52] Tommy: If they love each other, or if they just fake it. And if other daughters feel like I feel too.

[3:00] Jimi: Cause some days I think I'm dying, but I'm really only trying to get through.

[3:10] Tommy: Or just another day for another stolen hour. When the world can feel my power in no way.

[3:18] Jimi: It's just another day. Feeling like I'll live forever.

[3:24] Tommy: Feeling like this feeling never goes away. For just another day.

[3:27] Jimi: Next to Normal. Jimmy, we're talking about Next to Normal.

[3:28] Tommy: Yes, we are.

[3:33] Jimi: This is an exciting show. I'm very excited to talk about this with you.

[3:34] Tommy: And we know a lot of you are excited to talk about it as well.

[3:39] Jimi: Yes. Worth saying. I'm sure plenty of you know a lot of the content and ideas surrounding Next to Normal. But if you don't, fair warning, it deals with a lot of heavier topics. Suicidal ideation. Depression. Bipolar disorder. Dealing with grief. A lot of these things that can make people uncomfortable can make you uncomfortable, which is totally okay. And is why we're bringing it up now. So you can make that decision about whether or not this episode is for you.

[4:04] Tommy: And if you stuck around, then great. Welcome. Let's proceed.

[4:08] Jimi: So Next to Normal premiered off-Broadway and opened for a tiny amount of time, but in that time won four million awards. It was great.

[4:18] Tommy: Then it got reworked and they did some workshops and it was then brought onto Broadway in 2009.

[4:26] Jimi: Yes, it has music by Tom Kitt and lyrics and book by Brian Yorkey.

[4:31] Tommy: And it was nominated for 11 Tonys. It only won three.

[4:34] Jimi: It lost Best Musical that year to Billy Elliot, which I'm sure we'll talk about.

[4:38] Tommy: Yes, we will. And it also won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2010.

[4:45] Jimi: Dun dun dun. Doesn't happen to musicals a lot.

[4:48] Tommy: It doesn't. Especially rock musicals.

[4:50] Jimi: Especially rock musicals. Especially... although it did. Previously, the most previous award for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama that went to a musical was Rent.

[4:58] Tommy: Was Rent. Yeah, true.

[4:59] Jimi: Certainly was a sign. Maybe a sign of the times? I don't know.

[5:02] Tommy: And now it's a hip-hop musical, so who knows what's next?

[5:05] Jimi: Yeah, I know. We need to invent new genres of music, or will the pendulum swing back the other way?

[5:10] Tommy: Yes, I want a traditional, golden age, soaring orchestral musical. That would be a dream.

[5:20] Jimi: So, Thomas, tell us about what Next to Normal is.

[5:23] Tommy: Oh man, Next to Normal is the story of a very stereotypical-seeming suburban family husband, wife, daughter, son, question mark. And then the other two characters we meet are the daughter's boyfriend and the mother's doctor. The mother, we learn pretty early on in the show, has some kind of mental illness, some kind of mental disease, somewhere around bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depressive states, manic episodes, things like that. And it is very much related to the fact that her son died very, very young, but she still has delusional episodes where she sees him as a fully grown 17, 18-year-old, living in their house, doing normal son things, and the toll that that has on their family.

[6:19] Jimi: Yeah.

[6:20] Tommy: That's the A plot. And then the B plot is their poor daughter, who is, you know, alive, and how she has to cope with her mother's bipolar disorder and her kind of descent into teenage drug abuse to cope with the stresses of teenage-dom in suburban society. We also watch the husband kind of grapple with repressing and not thinking about the thought of his son dying. And so it is an exploration into mental disorders, contemporary teenagers, and how we deal with grief. And it's great!

[7:07] Jimi: I know, exactly. As heavy as that sounds, it's also very entertaining in just a lot of different ways. I mean, Next to Normal has been in my top five since I first ever listened to it, and I've never left. And I never will.

[7:23] Tommy: Alice Ripley, who we didn't say is the answer to the quiz question, Jeff Bowen, title of show, says that Alice Ripley is fierce. I think pretty much in Title of Showland, that reference is either to Next to Normal or Sideshow, because of the way these two shows cross over in time. But when Alice Ripley accepts the award for Best Actress in a show, she's quite the switch. We'll put a link in the show notes.

[7:51] Jimi: She's quite the woman.

[7:52] Tommy: She is fierce, unequivocally, unironically, yes.

[7:57] Jimi: Incredibly fierce. She incredibly is her own person, and I really get a kick out of watching her as her and her as anyone else.

[8:09] Tommy: If I'm recalling correctly, she has some statement about, like, musical theater is fine art, and Next to Normal is proof of that. Next to Normal is an expansion of what musical theater can cover, which is why it seems like pretty heavy issues in what is normally a genre filled with kicklines and confetti.

[8:32] Jimi: Totally. This is my one. This is the one that I use.

[8:35] Tommy: Yeah.

[8:36] Jimi: You know, I mean, when you have the argument, the inevitable argument of the jazz hands argument, let's call it, where it's like, oh, well, you like musicals, how trivial for you. I thought you said you were a real artist. And I'm like, you can go to hell because you are completely wrong.

[8:50] Tommy: You can't deny that these incredible pieces couldn't, you know, I mean, be created and exist and are legitimate. Here it is, won the Pulitzer Prize. You can't get more of a rubber stamp than that.

[9:02] Jimi: Yeah. Jimmy, shall we talk about the history of Next to Normal and where it's come and where it's going?

[9:05] Tommy: Yeah, absolutely.

[9:29] Jimi: You know that it's just a sonata away and you play and you play.

[9:54] Tommy: And everything else goes away. Everything else goes away.

[10:04] Jimi: Everything else goes away.

[10:07] Tommy: Where it's going. What do you know that I don't know?

[10:10] Jimi: Well, I mean, maybe that's.

[10:14] Tommy: So I think let's just start let's just start right there, because it's a question with no answer.

[10:19] Jimi: Why the hell have I not gone to see Next to Normal in London?

[10:22] Tommy: Which is fascinating to me, because in doing research for this, do you know how many high schools in the United States have done Next to Normal?

[10:28] Jimi: Yes, I look up regularly.

[10:30] Tommy: Yeah, no, it's fascinating.

[10:32] Jimi: But so, OK, when did you did you encounter the show when it was contemporary? Like, did you listen to it when it came out?

[10:37] Tommy: Me too.

[10:40] Jimi: And I wonder this is a thought that's just approaching me now, but I wonder if that affects our existence in the musical theater.

[10:49] Tommy: I encountered Next to Normal before I encountered Rent.

[10:52] Jimi: Let's say.

[10:52] Tommy: Oh, interesting. I was Rent first.

[10:54] Jimi: OK. And so I find Next to Normal not in a super big way, but still, and I think an important way, a defining existence of musical theater in my brain.

[11:07] Tommy: Yeah.

[11:07] Jimi: Because I got to experience it.

[11:10] Tommy: Like, I remember watching it on the Tonys.

[11:12] Jimi: One of the first times I watched the Tonys.

[11:14] Tommy: Oh my God, it was on the first time I watched the Tonys.

[11:17] Jimi: Oh yeah, we're so cute.

[11:19] Tommy: Yeah.

[11:21] Jimi: But so, like, I think because it was so revolution.

[11:24] Tommy: Well, I guess I don't know.

[11:26] Jimi: The sense I was going to say was because it was so revolutionary for its time.

[11:33] Tommy: I...

[11:36] Jimi: Did you hate that statement as soon as you said it?

[11:38] Tommy: Yeah, I do hate it as soon as I said it, because I think there are revolutionary musicals. I think Rent was revolutionary. I think Hamilton was revolutionary. You know, as we've talked at length, I think Great Comet was revolutionary.

[11:50] Jimi: Yeah.

[11:50] Tommy: I don't know if revolutionary is the right word for what Next to Normal was.

[11:54] Jimi: No, I don't think it is either.

[11:56] Tommy: I think where Rent's flaws are quite blatant.

[12:03] Jimi: Yeah.

[12:04] Tommy: I mean, I adore it still.

[12:05] Jimi: Sure, absolutely.

[12:06] Tommy: Through and through. Where Rent's flaws are still blatant, I feel like Next to Normal came in and galvanized it.

[12:11] Jimi: Yeah, yeah.

[12:13] Tommy: And kind of was like, this is what Jonathan Larson... Not that I was trying to say, obviously, it's a completely different show, completely different themes. But it's like, this is what Jonathan Larson was doing with musical theatre, and this is what Jonathan Larson probably would have continued to do with musical theatre had he not passed away.

[12:32] Jimi: Because it is such a complete piece.

[12:36] Tommy: Yes.

[12:37] Jimi: And it is so well structured and is, you know, I think, in many ways, a perfect musical.

[12:43] Tommy: I would be hard pressed to find flaws in the structure of the show.

[12:48] Jimi: And most importantly, it's 100% original.

[12:53] Tommy: Yes, which, as we've mentioned, doesn't happen ever on Broadway, right?

[12:59] Jimi: I mean, yeah, it's just...

[13:01] Tommy: It's the sad thing to see, because this, again, is the one that I go to.

[13:09] Jimi: It proves the point that you can write original.

[13:12] Tommy: Yeah.

[13:12] Jimi: And it can work.

[13:14] Tommy: It does very much feel... I've had the thought before that, like, the Wicked Avenue Q year was the year that got Broadway out of its late 90s slump of reviews and dance numbers and things, which are totally fine, but was definitely a thing.

[13:33] Tommy: You know, declining ticket sales and all sorts of stuff.

[13:35] Jimi: And 2003 was a year where we kind of reversed that.

[13:38] Tommy: But I think galvanized is a great word there.

[13:41] Jimi: That Next to Normal solidified.

[13:44] Tommy: What is now the contemporary Broadway sound?

[13:48] Jimi: Yeah, I mean, it always gets Superboy and the Invisible Girl and I Miss the Mountains get lumped into the last five years and Songs for a New World. And the Kerrigan and Loudermilks and the Cumin and Diamonds, like that whole kind of oeuvre of song that you saw every single kind of cabaret or, you know, back of a bar.

[14:07] Jimi: Performance of Musical Theatre. They all get lumped in there, whereas this is actually a legit Broadway book musical.

[14:14] Tommy: Right, right, and not based on anything. And you would be hard-pressed to not find direct comparisons between, like, this and Dear Evan Hansen and this and Be More Chill. Like, you can absolutely see from music structure to staging to content, right? Like, you could do Dear Evan Hansen and Next to Normal in rep with the same number of cast members.

[14:40] Jimi: Yeah, exactly. They're the same gosh darn show.

[14:44] Tommy: But I like Next to Normal better.

[14:46] Jimi: Exactly. No, completely. I mean, obviously, we'll beat around the bush with Dear Evan Hansen for as long as we possibly can. But, you know, I think Dear Evan Hansen is a product of its time, as in the time being now. Whereas I don't think Next to Normal was necessarily a product of its time.

[15:10] Tommy: I think Next to Normal has a longevity that Dear Evan Hansen will not have.

[15:14] Jimi: I completely agree.

[15:15] Tommy: In replayability, in revivability.

[15:20] Jimi: Yeah. Well, but here's the thing. Nobody talks about it in terms of a new production that we can do.

[15:30] Tommy: I mean, yes, obviously it exists in high schools, but I'm talking professional. And I wonder about that quite a lot, because I'm like, is it just because that production in its time was so iconic and so important and so significant that if you try and revive it, it just won't be as special?

[15:50] Jimi: And I don't often feel that with shows, because a lot of the time I'm like, I want to see it again. I want to see what else you can do with it. Whereas with Next to Normal, I'm a bit like, hmm, am I okay with it? Existing is just a period of time.

[16:03] Tommy: So I am glad you brought this up, because this was a new discovery I had in doing research for this show. There was a production of Next to Normal that went up in April and May of this year, of 2019. The musical stage company in Toronto, Canada.

[16:23] Jimi: And it's interesting to delve around this, and I don't think they're the first people to do this, but they were the first company I came across that did this particular thing with Next to Normal, which I find kind of fascinating, but I want to be delicate in how I talk about it. Where the original production of Next to Normal casts what we view as the quote-unquote standard nuclear American family, which is white, which is fully white in a way where white people don't even view it as white, because it is quote-unquote normal.

[17:06] Tommy: And then a lot of its power comes from breaking what is considered quote-unquote normal in this white picket fence style family. This production in Canada cast the show as a half Asian family, where dad was white and mom was Asian.

[17:15] Jimi: And there is a lot of, at least in North American family structures and assumptions, there is a cultural aspect that that brings into question in an interesting way. There are a lot of, you know, this is a terrible term, but Asian families often talk about the existence of tiger moms, where it's like, you will learn how to play the cello and the piano and the trumpet, and you will get great A's, and you will become a doctor and a surgeon, because anything less than that is no good.

[17:50] Tommy: And this kind of extreme stream pressure that is put upon children of Asian parents, it's a cultural thing. And seeing that layer applied to Next to Normal, it is the sort of thing that people talk about Lion King, where like, if you're not black, or don't have some assumption of the black American experience, Lion King is a show about lions in the savannah.

[18:20] Jimi: And if you are black, there is a way to read the show where it is the story of being black. There is a lot of, you know, African undertones that speak and are important about a particular kind of family and that sort of things. And this is why I want to speak about it delicately, because I'm out of my lane here, right?

[18:41] Tommy: Yeah, absolutely.

[18:43] Jimi: And so, this actress, Ma-Anne Dionysio, who played the mom in Next to Normal, you know, when my image of that is the like, 1950s Alice Ripley housewife, like the stereotypical white picture, to then see that transposed is powerful.

[19:06] Tommy: You know, we've talked plenty about like, Asian underrepresentation in musical theater anyway, as a big problem in it. And so, that is the thing that makes, like, that is, it is interesting to me that your thought of like, what can you do to make Next to Normal even better nowadays? Like, I found an answer.

[19:24] Jimi: I found one, at least.

[19:25] Tommy: Yeah, it is interesting.

[19:29] Jimi: But then I'm wondering, because to me, Next to Normal, I don't know, it's tricky.

[19:38] Tommy: I was gonna say, it doesn't feel like it contains any sort of race.

[19:44] Jimi: Sure, yeah. Do you know what I mean?

[19:45] Tommy: Like, it's not a, I was about to say, it's not a like, traditional white family story. But actually, do you know what? It kind of is.

[19:52] Jimi: It probably is.

[19:54] Tommy: And that was the journey I went, seeing this production, or seeing that this production existed. Like, when we talked about Music Man or Hello, Dolly, about like, you don't see this as a white story until you're challenged with the alternative.

[20:09] Jimi: Um, so I find that tricky, though, because if, you know, obviously, in the book, Natalie,

[20:20] Tommy: Yeah.

[20:21] Jimi: the expectations that she has, she's put upon herself.

[20:24] Tommy: Sure.

[20:25] Jimi: Because she wants to escape.

[20:27] Tommy: Right, she wants to get out.

[20:28] Jimi: What she feels is inevitable.

[20:30] Tommy: Yeah.

[20:31] Jimi: Whereas, what you're saying is kind of implied.

[20:35] Tommy: Yeah.

[20:35] Jimi: Is that the expectations have been put on her.

[20:38] Tommy: Yeah.

[20:39] Jimi: By her parents?

[20:40] Tommy: By reading, you know, I think you can flip that script.

[20:43] Jimi: I don't think anything's terribly explicit either way.

[20:47] Tommy: There's also an undercurrent of like, in the same way that I don't think there's any kind of group that has gotten past the stigma of talking about mental illness openly.

[21:03] Jimi: But they're, at least based on some of the reviews I had read, and some of the discussion about this 2019 production, that there is perhaps even more so a larger stigma against talking about those things in the Asian community.

[21:15] Tommy: Yeah, absolutely.

[21:18] Jimi: You know, and as I said, out of my lane, I don't want to assume. But yeah, it is an interesting, I could see how that could create a residence there that was not explicitly intended by, you know, the white suburban authors of this show.

[21:36] Tommy: But it certainly doesn't seem inappropriate.

[21:39] Jimi: Well, I guess that's the thing is like, mental health is something that we all have.

[21:44] Tommy: It's not a white condition.

[21:46] Jimi: It's not an Asian condition. It's a condition that every single human shares.

[21:52] Tommy: And in that respect, of course, and I guess it's just how communities and families interact with mental health in a different way.

[22:03] Jimi: Yeah. Well, can we, we might be going off script a little bit, but do you want to take a second to talk about mental health? Because I have, I think there's a lot to talk about there.

[22:33] Tommy: I think it's worth it to define terms a little bit.

[23:01] Jimi: Mental, we often conflate, I think, understandably so, the terms mental health and mental illness.

[23:11] Tommy: Yeah.

[23:11] Jimi: And they are related, but different.

[23:15] Tommy: In the same way that health and illness is related.

[23:17] Jimi: Yeah, absolutely.

[23:18] Tommy: And that you can be not healthy while not being ill.

[23:23] Jimi: Yeah.

[23:24] Tommy: And plenty of us struggle with mental health, while struggling with mental illness can often be a separate thing.

[23:31] Jimi: Yeah, I would agree.

[23:33] Tommy: And like, we conflate this even in contemporary discussions, when people get distracted and say things like, oh, that's my ADHD kicking in.

[23:38] Jimi: And like, it's not.

[23:44] Tommy: And that can be a little offensive.

[23:48] Jimi: It's a tricky product of our time, I think.

[23:50] Tommy: Yeah, for sure.

[23:52] Jimi: I don't think people really said that 20 years ago.

[23:56] Tommy: Yeah.

[23:56] Jimi: Well, and this is, so the, I've mentioned it casually several times, but my boyfriend is a doctor, knows Next to Normal, loves Next to Normal.

[24:04] Tommy: And I've had a couple conversations with him and one of our friends who is a psychologist, who I played my psychopharmacologist and I for him.

[24:15] Jimi: And he found one of the funniest things in the world, because he knows what all those medicines do.

[24:20] Tommy: Yeah, exactly.

[24:21] Jimi: And in talking about this, I found a couple things with professionals who deal in some of this. The first was that I have a couple, I think, honestly, and wholesome preconceived notions about mental illness that are poorly founded, that mostly center around any kind of simplification you think you're making about these sorts of things is wrong.

[24:39] Tommy: This is in the way that, like, if you think you understand nuclear physics or quantum mechanics, you're wrong, because there's so much stuff that we don't understand that you can't understand it.

[24:57] Jimi: Yeah.

[24:59] Tommy: But the flip side of that is a lot of the stigma based around mental illness is that we don't perceive it as an illness in the same way that we do chronic illnesses like asthma or temporary illnesses like influenza, where in reality, it bears more similarities to those things than whatever we've built up in our mind based on years of socio-emotional history around mental illness and, you know, mania and some of these other terms, you know, craziness that we use to apply to these sorts of things.

[25:33] Jimi: Hysteria.

[25:34] Tommy: Yeah. And, like, breaking down those walls is tough.

[25:42] Jimi: But it is, it's one of the things that I, like, I think it is why a lot of people really appreciate this show, because it is difficult to talk about mental illness from a purely scientific standpoint, because it is so closely tied to so many of these socio-emotional things.

[26:07] Tommy: Yeah, it is emotional.

[26:09] Jimi: Yeah, it is. I think, yeah.

[26:13] Tommy: It's completely emotional. It's where, you know, comparing it to health, physical health, we know that if you take Tylenol, you'll feel better if you have a fever.

[26:27] Jimi: Yep.

[26:28] Tommy: You know what I mean? I don't know that if I take Xanax, that I will feel happier and calmer.

[26:40] Jimi: But we do have a sense, and I think this is the thing that people overlook, we do have a sense that mental illness, especially chronic mental illness, is related to chemical imbalances in the brain, in the same way that a fever is related to some kind of chemical or biological imbalance in your body.

[26:59] Tommy: And so, there are pharmacological ways that can affect that, that we know that are effective and successful.

[27:18] Jimi: But they, unlike taking Tylenol for a fever, we don't prescribe, you know, psychotic drugs without some therapy alongside of it, because our brains are complicated and things that we don't fully understand.

[27:35] Tommy: This is it, you know what I mean? Like, we know the blood vessels of our body, you know what I mean? We can map them. We can't map the brain.

[27:43] Jimi: We can make a vague estimation, but we don't really know what that thing does.

[27:49] Tommy: Well, and like, this is the thing I have learned, and I find fascinating. We know a lot about the brain. And like, even some of the things that this musical approaches, like electroshock therapy and stuff, it is effective because of how much we know about the brain.

[28:08] Jimi: But the more we learn, the more we don't know.

[28:10] Tommy: Exactly. The doors open up and there are all the exceptions.

[28:15] Jimi: The rules that get flung up open up all of these other doors and other possibilities and other questions that we then try and answer. Yeah, so I think with Next to Normal, I think a lot of people on the surface could think that it's about bipolar disorder, it's about schizophrenia, and if you have that you can relate. And I completely disagree with that comment. I just think it is about family, you know, because the thing is, no matter what family you have, at some point someone will have difficulty with their own mental health. I would even, you know, raise you one that it is about mental health in a way that we all can relate to. In a way that, like, you can appreciate the movie Rocky, even if you're not a professional athlete.

I mean, I hate it. Sure, yeah. If you, you know, anyone who has attempted to run- Angels in the outfield. Sure, angels in the outfield. You can appreciate the Olympics even not being a professional athlete, right? Yeah. You can appreciate more daily mental health issues, even if you're not someone with a chronic mental illness. Yeah, completely. But I think the reason I say family is because, in some form or other, we have one. Whether it's our chosen family, or whether it is our mum and dad and our brother and our sister, we have one. And how they act affects us, and we have feelings about that, which then causes them to feel something. And I think Next to Normal is just a whole conversation about that in all of its shapes and forms.

One of the things in particular, one of the sort of storylines, I guess, or themes that it talks about that I am really passionate about, and I find incredible that they do talk about it, is the idea of a caregiver. And it's something that, even across all fiction, nobody really talks about. Nobody really examines this idea of the caregiver, which is just an important part of any chronic illness, as the illness itself. And because the illness is the sexy bit, because that's the bit that's like, oh, there's interesting stuff going on there. And there's hope, you know, there's a cure at the end of it. The caregiver is the person who is having their own suffering and their own issues. You know, a lot of the time, the caregiver hates it.

They're angry. They're raging, because they're like, why do you have this illness? Why do I need to take care of you? I was getting along. We were getting along absolutely fine. What's going on? One of the most moving parts of the show, knowing its story, is back at the very beginning. And it's one you don't pick up quite on the cast recording, but during Just Another Day, the thing that shows us that we're not, like, there's a couple hints here and there, that like, we're not, something's wrong here. We don't know what, but Just Another Day is phrased as like, we're a perfect loving family. My son's shit, but that's fine. You know, like, that's- Everything's very frantically happy. Everything's frantic.

Exactly, right? He's a teenager. You know, my daughter's a freak, but they're kids, and that's what that's like. And, you know, I love my husband. And then there's a couple things about, like, you know, Natalie, you need to slow down. I'm going to have sex with your father. And as an audience member, you're like, well, that's a weird thing to say. You know, but then the song concludes with Diana making lunches for everyone to go to work, and she starts making these sandwiches, and she continues making these sandwiches, and when she runs out of room on the table to make sandwiches, she starts making sandwiches on the floor, and then she continues on. And then Dan has this beautiful set of moments where he says- I'm gonna see if I can find it.

He says, Diana- So Dan says, sweetie, is everything okay? And Diana says, I wanted to get ahead on lunches. And Dan doesn't make a comment that's like, no, you're an idiot, right? But he says, instead, sure, let me help you up. Diana says, I guess I got carried away. He says, maybe a little. Let's go see Dr. Fine. This is just a blip, okay? Nothing to worry about. I'll wrap up the sandwiches, and then we'll go. And, like, when you're just approaching the show, like, that's our first introduction to, like, she might be what we consider crazy. But to watch Dan have one of the first emotional moments of the show is so powerful, as that caregiver, like, how he's coping.

[34:02] Tommy: I think a lot of stories, what they would do with that is they'd be like, this is Diana's story. We're gonna focus on Diana, and here's her support system. That's great, Dan. This is Diana's story. And you miss out on how he's feeling. But very quickly, we're four or five songs in, and then you start to hear from Dan, and you start to hear what he's thinking. He's asking, who's crazy? Is it me? Why am I the crazy one to be sticking around here? Like, this is a horrible situation to be in. Why am I putting myself through this? And these are all these, of course, these natural thoughts that any spouse, any family member, you know, would have when coping with mental illness or chronic illness, you know, it's just that.

And they're completely natural thoughts to have. They don't make you a bad person. Right. Yeah, absolutely. They're just, it's just exactly what happens. And nobody talks about it. And, you know, we talk a lot about, like, role models in theatre and art and fiction in general, and having people to look up to. And I think there are so few caregiver role models where it's like, ah, I totally feel like that. Yeah, you know, yeah. And it just, it never gets discussed. And I think Dan, you know, it's not just one isolated moment. I feel like him and Diana work really well in parallel together through the show. You see their conflict. Oh, yeah. You see, you know, the difficulties of their relationship.

They've both gone through something so tragic together. They deal with it in completely different ways. Right. But Diana isn't coping well with it. No. And so he is forced to become her caregiver. It is very much that, like, if you find yourself going through hell, you have to keep going. Yes. Like, totally. Like, this listen through, I had never given previous listens, I had never given too much thought to I've Been, which at the end of Act One, so much so that I had to right now look up the name of the song, because I don't remember, but it's Dan's song, where he's talking about, like, what happens next. And, like, every day grows more and more absurd. And the thing you miss out if you're not watching the show, this is immediately after Diana has attempted suicide.

And this number is staged with Dan, like, cleaning the blood off the floor. Yep. And the traditional artistic assumption for that moment would be to fill it with sorrow and keening and, like, wailing and, like, terrible, terrible thought. And to instead watch him be like, gosh, what happens next? Yeah, what am I doing? Where do we go from here? Yeah. You know, and, like, certainly filled with mourning and grief and uncertainty, but not, like, instead of being one note sorrow, there is something much more multi-flavoured here. It doesn't labour the point. He says she's been hurt and how? Yeah. I mean, that's a very, you know, blasé way to talk about suicide. Yeah. But as a caregiver, you can't dwell on it.

You can't be like, oh, you know, because you know that you need to clean up the floor. You need to sort the house out because you've got a child. Right. You know, you've got to move on and figure out what happens next. You absolutely do. And I think so. I'm just really obsessed with Dan as a character. I think he's such an incredible character. Oh, I mean, all the characters in the show are fantastic. But yeah, Dan in particular, because his own mental health journey is something that you might not even really notice on your first experience of the show, I think, necessarily. But when you kind of go back and you realize, oh, my God, the man is depressed for the whole show. You know what I mean?

He is not coping with his grief. He's not facing up to it. And it is affecting him. Yeah, it is one of, I think it might be one of my favourite instrumental musical moments in all of musical theatre. At the end of I Am The One reprise at the very, very end, which is when we learn Gabriel's name. And Dan says his name, Gabe Gabriel. And Gabe goes, Hi, Dad. And the music goes, and hits this like minor chord at the end. It's not like so like, dun dun dun, minor chord. But it doesn't, it's not like, it also doesn't hopefully end on a major chord. And it is this, you know, I worry about Dan at the end of the show. Well, of course, in legitimate, in legitimate ways. Like, are you, the fact that now you're seeing Gabe, are you about to start your own version of Psychosis?

Well, that's it. But what's, it's so incredibly written, because Gabe is in a lot of Dan's songs. A lot of the time, he's just doing backing. A lot of the time, he's just going, ah, you know, and I Am The One. He, yes, it's kind of a duet between Diana and Dan. And then Gabe is obviously with Diana. Yeah. But he sings along with Dan. Yeah. Do you know, I mean, he's a part of Dan's song. Yeah. And it's so well written that it's like, just this hint, it's like, he's there. He's both of them there. Right. And then we get to the end and you realize that Dan is finally facing up to his grief, because, you know, it's Gabe that says, until you name me, you can't tame me. Yeah. This idea. And then suddenly Dan names him.

Yeah. Dan is starting the process of coping with his grief. After 16 years, you know, there's this great dichotomy built in that Diana, you know, hasn't said Natalie's name until after weeks of therapy. And Gabe spends the entire show, not looking, or sorry, Dan spends the entire show not looking at Gabe or acknowledging him or saying his name. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it makes you wonder, like, is Diana psychosis about Gabe? Or is it about Dan's non-acknowledgement of Gabe? Yeah, because she gets angry at him, you know, she's begging him, what was his name? Tell me his name, you need to face up to this. Yeah. And he doesn't because he just doesn't think that's the right thing to do.

Yeah. Even early on in the Natalie Henry scene, when Diana comes out with the birthday cake and is like, whose birthday is it? And it's Natalie who says, it's my brother, he died before I was born. And Dan doesn't say anything. Dan doesn't acknowledge it. Dan doesn't talk about it. Like, that is a hard line he has drawn in his brain. And it's the sort of thing that like, of course, of course, that's where it is. But it is so subtly written, that unless you're looking for it, you don't notice it.

[41:38] Jimi: Yeah, absolutely. It kind of glances off and the way so it's interesting to see that you worry about Dan, because I kind of feel the opposite is I feel like I do think there is almost a cyclical thing where when Diana makes the decision to take a bit of control of her own life, and go and just try and be away from everything. That is the time when Dan has the breathing space to accept and look at his grief because he's alone for the first time. But then his role as a caregiver gets passed on to Natalie, who's been so scared of getting involved in her own family, this whole show. And then suddenly, she takes this active decision in supporting her dad switching on the light, the most simple thing. But being like, no, do you know what, let's open the curtains a bit. Let's get some light in here and start to feel a bit better. And here is this caregiver again. Yeah.

[42:02] Tommy: And she has that conversation about like, I don't need a life that's normal. It's the, it's the wink moment. It's like, here's the title. Something next to normal could be okay. Yeah. And like, we can, you know, it's one of my favorite lines in the show. Let me see if I can find it. Maybe we can't be okay. Maybe we're tough and we'll try anyway. Yeah. Like, I get choked up saying it out loud just right now. What a powerful and important sentiment that is still not unhappily ever after. No, not at all. Like, it's not, it's not a, it is hopeful on one level and very not hopeful on another level. And it is like a judge of your coping mechanism, which sought like how you can convince your brain for it to be a hopeful statement. Yeah. Because it's, that's the thing. And I think that's such a trait of.

[42:23] Jimi: Kind of modern musical theatre. And I mean modern in the sense of post-60s. Because, you know, happy endings, as we know them, aren't interesting, really. They're nice. And aren't what life is like. We don't get to end with a curtain call. I think as humans have decided we're going to chapterize our stories into these discrete moments, and we do it all the time, both through art and just in the way we talk about our life. But that's not how life exists. And Next to Normal takes a chapterized slice of life and challenges that notion that there is a beginning and an end to the story.

[43:09] Tommy: Totally. It does it very well. It does it very well. It's very moving. It doesn't make me happy. Does this show make you happy?

[43:19] Jimi: Yeah, it does, actually. I love it deeply. And I think that's the thing. I'm not leaving like, ah, what a romp, at all, obviously. But I think it's really full of hope. And I kind of depend on it for that, you know?

[43:37] Tommy: Yeah, sure. I think it was interesting delving into the show a little deeper, because it's one of those, like, I'll put Next to Normal on in the car and like, yeah, great songs. This is awesome. Love to listen to, right? And like, you know, yeah, I'm going to sing along to the post-suicide song. What a great bop. And I think that's the way it's tricked my brain. You know, Diana has a line in the show. It's something like, one of the doctors is asking her, you know, when was the last time she was happy? Or, you know, he asks, is there a difference between being happy and thinking you were happy? And she says, most people who think they're happy haven't just thought about it enough. And this is one of those shows that the more I think about it, the less happy it makes me.

[44:21] Jimi: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Because I think, because the story, and it's because of these caregiver characters, you know, that's where the hope lies, is that there's always someone.

[44:35] Tommy: Sure.

[44:35] Jimi: There's always someone there. And whether that person is yourself.

[44:38] Tommy: Yeah.

[44:38] Jimi: Whether you are Diana at the end, and you have been through everything.

[44:43] Tommy: Yeah.

[44:43] Jimi: And you're like, do you know what? I'm gonna leave.

[44:47] Tommy: Right. I'm gonna.

[44:48] Jimi: I'm gonna see how I do.

[44:50] Tommy: She makes the decision to become her own caregiver in the end.

[44:54] Jimi: Exactly. It's incredible. And it's a completely valid decision to make.

[44:58] Tommy: Yeah.

[44:59] Jimi: Because sometimes you do know best.

[45:01] Tommy: Yeah. Well, and like, you know?

[45:02] Jimi: But that's the limbo that the show leaves in, is like, you don't know that she's going to be better off this way.

[45:07] Tommy: No, not at all. Not at all. But, you know, maybe we can't be okay, but maybe we're tough and we'll try anyway.

[45:15] Jimi: Yeah, I know. That's why it's such a.

[45:16] Tommy: You know? And that's it. Why not?

[45:21] Jimi: Yeah. And I think that's the thing that kind of gives me hope with this show, is that it's like, there's always an option.

[45:31] Tommy: Yeah. Yeah.

[45:32] Jimi: You know?

[45:32] Tommy: Well, there has to be, that moving forward must be an option.

[45:38] Jimi: I mean, this is the thing.

[45:40] Tommy: This is the thing I actually legitimately struggle with a lot on a pretty regular basis. There, I mean, I teach teenagers, and teenagers nowadays, like, there's science behind this. They have more suicidal ideation than peers of their past. Like, more high schoolers nowadays contemplate suicide than high schoolers when we were that age. And there's a whole, you know, cultural, socio, you know, it's a swamp of why that might be happening. And it doesn't matter. I still got to deal with it as a high school teacher. And like, sorting through that, slumming through that, feeling like you don't know the answers, or that you might have done something wrong, um, is just really emotionally taxing.

[46:36] Jimi: And in a way that you know, they're, you know, the best, most comforting thing people can say to you is that there is no right answer.

[46:44] Tommy: I know.

[46:44] Jimi: Right? And that's not comforting at all.

[46:47] Tommy: Not at all. Until you can process that, until you can accept that.

[46:51] Jimi: That, like, we'll try anyway.

[46:54] Tommy: Yeah, exactly. Um, it's so, it's difficult to appreciate, particularly when you're so used to answers and you want answers.

[47:00] Jimi: Yeah.

[47:00] Tommy: And you're in that kind of, when you're in the Dan phase of like,

[47:03] Jimi: Yeah.

[47:03] Tommy: Why isn't this working? Why aren't we? You know what I mean?

[47:06] Jimi: Right.

[47:07] Tommy: And you're Diana being like, I don't really care if this doesn't work.

[47:09] Jimi: Right.

[47:10] Tommy: Do you know what I mean?

[47:11] Jimi: Yeah.

[47:12] Tommy: It's, yeah, I think it is a, it's a really interesting point. But again, I think it comes back to caregivers because,

[47:19] Jimi: Yeah.

[47:20] Tommy: No care, there's no caregiver training. There's no like, Oh yeah, I've got 10 years as a caregiver. You might be when it's someone you don't know when you work in care.

[47:30] Jimi: Yeah.

[47:30] Tommy: And my gosh, those people do incredible jobs and incredible work. But it's a completely different story when it's your family.

[47:37] Jimi: Yeah. When it happens to you by accident, when it's not your vocation. Like, I think even if, you know, say you're a doctor, you work in a nursing home or something like, one, you've made that choice. And two, you have some like professional disassociation that you can use. And it's your job.

[47:51] Tommy: And certainly not to disassociate it. Like there, there are, you know, I know plenty of doctors who like needs, like hospitals are built with rooms where doctors can go cry because that's important to the success of the hospital. Um, you know, spoiler alert, schools are built with rooms where teachers can go cry. Like these things exist because we know the, you know, the, the inmates can't see the, the, uh, the guards crying wherever they are in that metaphor. Um, but when you stumble into it, when you're forced into it, especially if you are a family member, like you're someone like Dan, who you're, you got lucky that you're not the one who has succumbed to this depressive bipolar disorder. But you totally could have. Nature, nurture wise, you were right in the same spot, but you, you know, the coin flipped and like, that's the, that's the thesis of who's crazy, right? That's the, like, who is the crazy one in this moment?

[48:48] Jimi: And that's when we get to the end. Dan is coping with his own stuff.

[48:55] Tommy: Yeah.

[48:56] Jimi: It's different stuff.

[48:57] Tommy: Yeah.

[48:58] Jimi: It's still his own stuff.

[48:59] Tommy: Yeah.

[49:01] Jimi: And he still needs help.

[49:02] Tommy: Yeah.

[49:03] Jimi: He still needs help. And he gets that help. You know, I mean, it's, it's just, it's so well balanced. There is a great moment after, um, uh, Diana leaves. Um, where Dan sees Diana's doctor and has this question. He asks her something, he asks him something along the lines of like, are you still seeing her? Is she still seeing you? Um, you know, I know you can't say how she doing and the doctor does what doctors should do. He doesn't say anything because that's where we live. But then the next thing he says to Dan is like, would you like me to recommend someone for you?

[49:41] Tommy: Yeah.

[49:41] Jimi: And like, that's so powerful in that moment to be like, Hey, you, you look, you need help.

[49:51] Tommy: Yeah.

[49:52] Jimi: Yeah. You probably needed help before.

[49:55] Tommy: That's it.

[49:55] Jimi: But it's not even like, it's not even you need help. It's like help is there if you need it.

[49:59] Tommy: Yeah.

[50:00] Jimi: Yeah. I mean, you're allowed to be helped. And I think that's the thing is with caregivers.

[50:05] Tommy: Yeah.

[50:05] Jimi: Um, that, that's not something that can often come in their radar is that they're allowed to have fun. They're allowed to laugh. They're allowed to feel like crap.

[50:16] Tommy: Like, I think that's such a powerful statement.

[50:20] Jimi: You are allowed to be helped. That I wish I could give other people like that's Natalie's, you know, through line through this whole thing. Like she feels so trapped and stuck in her, like in her existence and in the world she's created for herself where she needs to get out. And so then goes totally nuclear and starts abusing her mom's drugs and going to raves and like having all sorts of disassociative moments, um, in a way that makes Henry really, really worried. And like, he's there to be like, you know, let, let me, let me know you again. Let me figure out who you are. Let, let me help you. And she is so resistant to that, resistant to that because she seems to have this opinion about like, I don't deserve help because I did this to myself.

[51:07] Tommy: Yeah.

[51:08] Jimi: It's, it's like, I'm under control of it.

[51:10] Tommy: Right.

[51:10] Jimi: It's that kind of idea.

[51:11] Tommy: It's like, I know me.

[51:14] Jimi: Yeah.

[51:14] Tommy: I've decided to be that exactly.

[51:17] Jimi: I decided to set the house on fire. So how dare you ask if I need help putting it out?

[51:21] Tommy: Exactly.

[51:23] Jimi: Um, and yeah, it's okay. It's such a great show.

[51:29] Tommy: It is such a great show and a, and one that, you know, they even, it is fascinating to me even just some of the like, uh, Gabe is reading Catcher in the Rye at one point. Natalie makes a Flowers for Algernon reference.

[51:46] Jimi: Like tell me their names.

[51:48] Tommy: Oh, it's the characters names.

[51:50] Jimi: No, for sure. Diana is a goddess of women and strength.

[51:56] Tommy: Yeah.

[51:57] Jimi: Right. And here is Diana.

[51:59] Tommy: Right.

[52:00] Jimi: The, this woman who is, you know, trying to find strength. Daniel, uh, I can't remember. It's like, it's something like, it's like a helper of God. It's that kind of, you know what I mean? So here's Diana, the God, Daniel, helper of God. Um, uh, Gabe, Gabriel, the angel Gabriel, the person who foretells.

[52:21] Tommy: Right.

[52:21] Jimi: He comes in. The first thing he says is, um, uh, the world will feel my power and obey.

[52:28] Tommy: Yeah.

[52:28] Jimi: It's this deific thing. Doesn't my, my Catholic school teachings escape me in this moment, but doesn't Gabriel appear to Daniel?

[52:37] Tommy: Yes, he does.

[52:38] Jimi: Exactly. Yeah. Um, it's really, I mean, who knows if it's intentional? I'm sure it is.

[52:44] Tommy: I'm sure it is.

[52:45] Jimi: It kind of has to be, you know what I mean? That's Brian Yorkey. If you look at some of his other stuff, he's, he's, you know, he's no idiot.

[52:53] Tommy: Yeah.

[52:53] Jimi: He is very much goddess in the detail. You know, that, that's the way he works. But even just like, uh, little things like Diana, the fact that she's called die a lot, like having that repeated, die, die, die, die. You're like, ah, hang on. Like, uh, you hear that, you know what I mean?

[53:14] Tommy: No, absolutely.

[53:15] Jimi: You really start to hear that.

[53:16] Tommy: Yeah. And then, you know, Henry, I've never met a Henry who's not a stoner.

[53:21] Jimi: Um, so.

[53:23] Tommy: Well, there you go.

[53:24] Jimi: Case in point.

[53:27] Tommy: What about Thomas the Tank Engine's friend, Henry?

[53:30] Jimi: Have you seen him?

[53:32] Tommy: That's true.

[53:33] Jimi: He is green.

[53:34] Tommy: Oh, no, I think.

[53:35] Jimi: No, I think he is green because Percy's red.

[53:39] Tommy: So there you go.

[53:57] Jimi: I see her feel the fire.

[54:02] Jimi: Now I know she needs me there to share.

[54:09] Jimi: I'm nowhere.

[54:13] Jimi: All these blank and tranquil years.

[54:19] Jimi: Seems they've dried up all my tears.

[54:25] Jimi: And while she runs free and fast.

[54:31] Jimi: Seems my wild days are past.

[54:44] Jimi: But I miss the mountains.

[54:51] Jimi: I miss the dizzy heights.

[54:58] Jimi: All the manic magic days.

[55:01] Jimi: And the dark depressing nights.

[55:07] Jimi: I miss the mountains.

[55:12] Jimi: I miss the highs and lows.

[55:16] Jimi: All the climbing, all the falling.

[55:21] Jimi: All the while the wild wind blows.

[55:24] Jimi: Stinging you with snow.

[55:27] Jimi: And soaking you with rain.

[55:32] Jimi: I miss the mountains.

[55:36] Jimi: I miss the pain.

[55:38] Tommy: This is a Pulitzer Prize winning musical.

[55:40] Jimi: But there's some controversy around that centered around some of the standards of how Pulitzers are won.

[55:44] Tommy: Yes.

[55:46] Jimi: Tell me more because I know nothing.

[55:48] Tommy: Tell me more.

[55:49] Jimi: Why did it win a Pulitzer?

[55:52] Tommy: It doesn't scan.

[55:53] Jimi: I could have worked that. Although I say Pulitzer, but I've heard people say Pulitzer, which I exaggerate a little bit.

[56:00] Tommy: I think Pulitzer is more correct.

[56:02] Jimi: Pulitzer. In the same way that I'm sure, oh, do you know a thing I learned that made me feel better about myself? Do you know how I never know how to say Aaron Tveit's last name?

[56:10] Tommy: Mm hmm.

[56:12] Jimi: In doing research for this, I watched first Next to Normal at the Tonys.

[56:19] Tommy: Right.

[56:20] Jimi: Have you watched it recently? Do you remember who introduces it?

[56:24] Tommy: Do you mean, wait, oh, as in, wait, do you mean the opening when it's him and Stockard Channing?

[56:28] Jimi: No.

[56:30] Tommy: The Next to Normal performance.

[56:31] Jimi: I know it's a...

[56:34] Tommy: Of course, if you are trying to remember some of the...

[56:36] Jimi: I know, right? Of course, I can't.

[56:39] Tommy: It is introduced by Carrie Fisher.

[56:43] Jimi: Oh, I do remember that. And she has this great moment about a mother's psychosis and the effects it has on her family and then does it like, you know, arrested or Jim Halpert stare into the camera. But then at the very... she like bumbles the transition into the thing. And she says something like, and now the cast of Next to Normal, including the cast of Next to Normal. And they start. And like, I've watched this a couple of times, been like that. Wow, what happened? Like, was this a teleprompter thing? Like, you know what? Yeah, like whatever. But someone posted a phone video of the Tony's rehearsal of that moment.

[57:28] Tommy: Right. And Carrie Fisher bumbles on Aaron Tveit's name. And goes, and now introducing the cast of Next to Normal. Aaron Tveit, Tveit, Aaron, Aaron, Aaron Tveit and Alice Ripley and whoever the dad is, Jay, whatever it is.

[57:44] Jimi: Jay Robert Spencer.

[57:45] Tommy: Jay Robert Spencer. And like watching that and then seeing her bumble it on the telecast. I'm sure it was her in that moment being like, I'm not confident enough in this name. But I've already said the beginning.

[57:59] Jimi: Yeah, I've committed to something. But I need to say something else.

[58:03] Tommy: Yeah, and you can't say two, but not the third.

[58:05] Jimi: Right. And so it gives me a little minor hope in my inability to pronounce people's names.

[58:11] Tommy: Particularly his name.

[58:13] Jimi: Yeah, I feel bad about I always feel bad about name stuff. We should be able to pronounce each other's names.

[58:20] Tommy: It's just a particular struggle I have. But anyway, the Pulitzer.

[58:25] Jimi: Pulitzer.

[58:25] Tommy: The Pulitzer. Rarely awarded to musicals. Can you name all eight?

[58:31] Jimi: Nine, nine, maybe now.

[58:35] Tommy: No, but I remember that Fiorello is one of them.

[58:38] Jimi: I know. Isn't that one of the weird ones?

[58:41] Tommy: Yeah. Let me pull up the list here. I think we've talked about them before. Can I remember them? No, I bet you you can get. Let me let me see if I can get both. Most most of them. So obviously Hamilton, Next to Normal, Rent.

[58:55] Jimi: Yep. They are the most recent, the most recent three.

[58:58] Tommy: Great. How to Succeed?

[59:01] Jimi: Yep.

[59:01] Tommy: That's four. Guys and Dolls.

[59:07] Jimi: They didn't win it. Guys and Dolls did not win.

[59:10] Tommy: No, it didn't. And there was a controversy there.

[59:12] Jimi: That's right. And Fiorello.

[59:14] Tommy: Fiorello. That's fine. Go.

[59:18] Jimi: Sunday in the Park.

[59:20] Tommy: Oh, you know, that wasn't on my radar.

[59:23] Jimi: Fascinating.

[59:24] Tommy: Yeah. Really?

[59:24] Jimi: Yeah. OK.

[59:27] Tommy: Don't know if I agree with that, but you go.

[59:29] Jimi: Seventy six. A Chorus Line.

[59:31] Tommy: Of course.

[59:32] Jimi: Yep.

[59:33] Tommy: And then the two that I didn't think you would get 1950 South Pacific and then South Pacific.

[59:39] Jimi: So I knew there was an R&H.

[59:40] Tommy: Yes.

[59:40] Jimi: But I can't remember which one.

[59:41] Tommy: That's the one. And then 1932, the Gershwin Of Thee I Sing.

[59:47] Jimi: Which Of Thee I Sing.

[59:50] Tommy: Yeah.

[59:50] Jimi: What did I say?

[59:52] Tommy: You said how to 110 in the Shade. You said I'm going to share. And then you also have Guys and Dolls, which Guys and Dolls didn't win, but How to Succeed did.

[59:59] Jimi: Yes.

[1:00:00] Tommy: Because Guys and Dolls didn't win.

[1:00:02] Jimi: Yes, exactly. Listen to our How to Succeed podcast if you want to know more. But and Next to Normal is one of only three musicals, including something in the parking of the icing that won the Pulitzer but did not win the Tony Award for Best Musical, which is also a fascinating thing when that happens.

[1:00:20] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:00:22] Jimi: But the controversy specifically with Next to Normal and it is hard to kind of pin down some of the trappings of this because the unlike the Tonys, where a lot of their nomination and voting is pretty public and pretty policy and rules based. The Pulitzer is a little less. So it's kind of just a decision in the same way that like the Nobel Prize is.

[1:00:45] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:00:46] Jimi: But the the gist of the story is there is an advisory committee that recommends to the Pulitzer committee. Here are some things we think might deserve the Pulitzer for drama. They did their recommendations in 2010 and then Next to Normal won. But Next to Normal was nowhere in any of their recommendations.

[1:01:13] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:01:16] Jimi: And so I just made a face that it reads really well on podcasts, an audible reaction there. It was the noise would have been. Huh?

[1:01:23] Tommy: Yeah. And there's a couple pieces of there's a couple now archived like Wall Street Journal articles and stuff where people don't, you know, people on the Pulitzer nominating committee can't and don't talk about their process or their list or anything. Rightly so.

[1:01:40] Jimi: Right. You don't want to know that you lost. This is a different kind of thing than the Tonys. It's supposed to be about literature and art and not about merit and production.

[1:01:49] Tommy: But a couple of politics.

[1:01:51] Jimi: Exactly.

[1:01:52] Tommy: But a couple of people on the committee came out and we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute.

[1:02:00] Jimi: And there is precedent for this. The same a similar thing happened with Rabbit Hole for the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

[1:02:09] Tommy: But.

[1:02:11] Jimi: The, you know.

[1:02:14] Tommy: A lot of the discussion around it is some of the same things we talk about. Is this the assumption made by people on the nominating committee was that people on the voting committee committee lived in New York, had seen and knew Next to Normal and liked it.

[1:02:32] Jimi: Yes.

[1:02:33] Tommy: And a lot of the other things on the list were not New York centric productions.

[1:02:39] Jimi: Yes.

[1:02:40] Tommy: And so it started to draw into question must drama and musical theater specifically live in New York for it to maintain any kind of artistic merit.

[1:02:51] Jimi: Right.

[1:02:52] Tommy: Which I think is a.

[1:02:55] Jimi: Hot button discussion that is, that's it's almost kind of disappointing.

[1:02:59] Tommy: Yeah, but I don't care. It still deserves it.

[1:03:03] Jimi: Sure.

[1:03:03] Tommy: But it is because no one was surprised other than other people who were like, I didn't say that.

[1:03:08] Jimi: Of course.

[1:03:10] Tommy: It also wouldn't be because it is just whereas with How to Succeed, right? That's a different story.

[1:03:16] Jimi: Yeah, well, it does. One of the other things that was more of a footnote in one of these articles, but I do find fascinating.

[1:03:24] Tommy: Yeah, they brought up usually the Pulitzer considers new works and recent works.

[1:03:34] Jimi: Yes.

[1:03:35] Tommy: Next to Normal played off Broadway years prior.

[1:03:41] Jimi: Yes, that's where I thought the controversy would have come from.

[1:03:45] Tommy: Sure.

[1:03:46] Jimi: Like, can you judge the new one? And this is, you know, the Tonys gets into hot water about this over revivals.

[1:03:51] Tommy: Of course.

[1:03:53] Jimi: And the idea is, you know, like one of the other interesting things is, I think, about the Pulitzer for drama. In theory, it's a literature award. It should go towards the best, you know, literary written play.

[1:04:09] Tommy: Far as I can tell, no unproduced play has ever won it.

[1:04:17] Jimi: Interesting.

[1:04:19] Tommy: Which is, you know, is that the cart before the horse? Is for a show to be good enough to win a Pulitzer, it probably will be produced. Or is that an unspoken requirement?

[1:04:31] Jimi: Yeah, interesting. So I guess. Yeah. Why would? Yeah.

[1:04:38] Tommy: I'd be surprised because how would it be not because theater or drama is visual.

[1:04:47] Jimi: Sure.

[1:04:48] Tommy: But generally speaking, the award goes to the playwright, not to say the producer or the director.

[1:04:56] Jimi: Absolutely.

[1:04:57] Tommy: But you write it for a stage.

[1:04:59] Jimi: Yes, sure. Because I could write the most fanciful thing that would never work in the stage. And therefore, that shouldn't win the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

[1:05:09] Tommy: Sure.

[1:05:10] Jimi: I does that mean, you know, I mean, because it's like it doesn't work.

[1:05:14] Tommy: Yeah. As the as the literature that you're making. Otherwise, why not just make a novel?

[1:05:20] Jimi: Yeah, absolutely. You know, it needs to work for stage. There's something about that to be in that pudding.

[1:05:25] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:05:26] Jimi: It would need to. The pudding would need to be right brought out to the table. I don't know where I was going. But that does make sense. It is just an interesting. I say it like I agree that Next to Normal deserved it. I agree that we shouldn't be New York centric with our theater production.

[1:05:44] Tommy: Hundred percent.

[1:05:45] Jimi: But it is an interesting underbelly. You know, I haven't exactly crunched the numbers, but I do wonder how many Pulitzer Prizes for drama were given to plays that were currently or recently playing in New York.

[1:06:02] Tommy: Yeah, it'd be interesting. Certainly plenty of them, if not the vast majority of them.

[1:06:09] Jimi: Yeah. And, you know. Speaking to one of the underpinnings of our podcast, like.

[1:06:16] Tommy: Yeah, but then I guess it's like it's just another award, isn't it?

[1:06:20] Jimi: Right. Exactly. Like a lot of this. What does it mean?

[1:06:22] Tommy: Right. And the Pulitzer certainly has more, I think, appropriate literal prestige than something like a Tony, where it is certainly prestigious, but it's also kind of a popularity contest.

[1:06:32] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:06:33] Tommy: Where the Pulitzer, I think their committee is a little more fine tuned.

[1:06:37] Jimi: Yes.

[1:06:37] Tommy: At the end of the day, it's another award. You're right. It's another opinion.

[1:06:41] Jimi: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[1:06:42] Tommy: That's a good way to put it. Another opinion.

[1:06:45] Jimi: Mm hmm.

[1:06:46] Tommy: I would have given the Pulitzer to Jekyll and Hyde.

[1:06:50] Jimi: That's not true. I would never do that.

[1:06:52] Tommy: Well, Next to Normal lost to Billy Elliot at the Tonys.

[1:06:55] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:06:56] Tommy: What do you think about that?

[1:06:57] Jimi: So, um, it's tricky because I don't want to talk too much about Billy Elliot.

[1:07:02] Tommy: Sure.

[1:07:03] Jimi: Until we talk about Billy Elliot.

[1:07:04] Tommy: Yeah, that's going to be a fun one.

[1:07:06] Jimi: Yeah. Because to me, Billy Elliot winning was a really big surprise.

[1:07:12] Tommy: Yeah. Yeah.

[1:07:14] Jimi: Because, I mean, it was Slim Pickens that year.

[1:07:17] Tommy: Yeah, it was up again. They were both up against Shrek and Rock of Ages.

[1:07:22] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:07:24] Tommy: And. You know, it wasn't going to be it wasn't going to be Shrek.

[1:07:31] Jimi: Yeah, absolutely.

[1:07:31] Tommy: Wasn't going to be Rock of Ages.

[1:07:33] Jimi: Right.

[1:07:33] Tommy: Billy Elliot is fantastic.

[1:07:35] Jimi: Yeah, it's absolutely incredible.

[1:07:37] Tommy: But it's British as it as anything.

[1:07:41] Jimi: Mm hmm.

[1:07:42] Tommy: And not even in a sense of it's set in Britain.

[1:07:47] Jimi: Right.

[1:07:48] Tommy: The content of Billy Elliot is British. It's like it's our it's not our Hamilton, but it talks about like deep rooted British politics.

[1:07:57] Jimi: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[1:07:59] Tommy: And. Y'all don't really know much about that. Do you know what I mean?

[1:08:03] Jimi: Yeah, I mean, a lot of a lot of what I know about it is from Billy Elliot.

[1:08:06] Tommy: It's from Billy Elliot. Exactly. So in that respect, I was really surprised because Next to Normal. Yeah, feels quite American.

[1:08:15] Jimi: Yeah, not that it's solely American. Yeah, we have ECT over here. We have mental health issues over here.

[1:08:21] Tommy: Right.

[1:08:21] Jimi: You know, we have mental health issues in Germany and Australia and Japan, you know, and whereas, you know, Billy is so so I was just surprised. I don't know. I don't know.

[1:08:31] Tommy: Well, I think that I think maybe it was Elton John is actually not a thing to dismiss because I do think there is, you know, it's best musical. We're not defining what best means, but I do think there at least maybe in 2009 there was a bit of a conceit about what a musical is that, as we've mentioned, Next to Normal was starting to push. Billy Elliot is much more a traditional musical than Next to Normal. It certainly pushes the envelope in a bunch of ways, but like Next to Normal was never going to win for best choreography. Barely has choreography.

[1:09:08] Jimi: Right.

[1:09:09] Tommy: Whereas Billy Elliot, for sure. And if you count choreographed dance numbers as a hallmark of musical theater, then Billy Elliot fits more into that cookie cutter of what we think a piece of musical theater is. And not that I think that is explicitly what people are voting on. But I yeah, I imagine there's something there.

[1:09:30] Jimi: Yeah, I think that's true because it is the triple threat.

[1:09:32] Tommy: Yes.

[1:09:34] Jimi: Like got opportunities for all three.

[1:09:36] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:09:37] Jimi: Yeah, you're right. You're right.

[1:09:39] ♪ Musical number ♪

[1:10:19] Tommy: They worked on the show for like a decade.

[1:10:22] Jimi: That I mean, I think it shows and I think publicly for a decade, some some shows certainly have 10 years of writing living on a piece of paper or in someone's trunk.

[1:10:34] Tommy: Yeah, but not, you know, there are bootlegs of the off Broadway.

[1:10:39] Jimi: Yeah, exactly. I wonder as well if there's anywhere floating around because so Next to Normal started as a sketch about electro shock therapy, electro convulsive therapy, sorry, which I find really fascinating. And it was called Feeling Electric, which carried on as the title for quite a long time. And then they were like, oh, let's start fleshing this out. Let's see how we got on. And then it eventually became a full blown thing. I do think it is, it is the beginning, as we talked like Next to Normal is the foundation for a lot of contemporary musical theatre. I think also in this way, that like, we get to see more drafts nowadays. And Next to Normal was a big example of that. Not in any kind of negative or judgmental way, but just more of an acknowledgement that like, the best way to know if your musical is good is to put it in front of people. But sometimes you have to put it in front of people when you know it's not ready yet.

[1:11:38] Tommy: Yeah, absolutely. When you know there's the mistakes.

[1:11:42] Jimi: Yeah. And like the Off-Broadway Workshop, lots of people liked it, lots of people did not. Which is why it didn't then immediately transfer to Broadway. They were like, we got to hold on. We got to do some work on this. And they changed quite a lot. So obviously, I despise bootlegs, and I really, I don't condone them in any way, shape or form. But I have watched one bootleg in my life, I will say it, I will admit it on the air. And I watched the Next to Normal Off-Broadway bootleg, I'm ruining theatre, single handedly. But I watched that, and it because it was so strange, because obviously, I was so used to the 2009 Broadway recording, that when I was like, hang on, there's other songs. And I thought, yeah, in my head, because I didn't really know what I was watching.

So in my head, I thought this was like added in during Broadway. And I was like, how come I've never heard? I can't believe this. Right. And then a research told me that I was like, no, this is what they cut.

[1:12:39] Tommy: Yeah. Yeah. What did you the because I, the disclosure, I have watched the Broadway bootleg of this.

[1:12:50] Jimi: You are ruining theatre.

[1:12:51] Tommy: I know I'm a terrible human being. It's really good. What did you think of this pre-Broadway tryout? Because the reason I ask is because critics didn't like it.

[1:13:03] Jimi: Yeah, it's not hugely different. Okay. In terms of staging. Yeah. In terms of book. Yeah. It's not vastly different. Sure. The song Feeling Electric is a bop.

[1:13:18] Tommy: Yeah, it feels completely out of place. The stuff I've read talks a lot about between Off-Broadway, then it's out of town. Well, out of town, Washington, DC. Well, Virginia, confusing. It was at Arena Stage, which is based in Washington, DC, but their main theater was closed. They were in Virginia because Washington, DC is tiny. Anyway, a lot of the talk about the revisions revolve around centering the story much more around Diana and making it a more intimate, personal piece of musical theatre. The things they say are like cutting out a lot of big show numbers. Which Feeling Electric is exactly that.

[1:14:05] Jimi: Yeah. Yeah, completely. And to replace it with Wish I Were Here is the best move anyone could ever have made ever, ever. Because that's a sensational song that adds leaps and bounds to the whole story.

[1:14:11] Tommy: Do you know my favorite thing about Wish I Were Here that I didn't know until I watched the bootleg, but I feel I can divulge in this moment? No. So, Wish I Were Here opens act two. Diana's getting her electroconvulsive therapy. And that was the plot point that we left you at intermission with, right? So, you're waiting for this. And the whole thing starts and they wheel Diana on stage and there's some deep moments and sound effects and stuff. And then the music starts and Alice Ripley walks on, on one of the upper catwalk things. And you're like, oh, that's not her in the bed asleep. She's up there. This is an easy theater trick, but it's so effective.

[1:15:02] Jimi: I know. We love a body double. You got me. You got me in that moment. And I'm right there with the metaphor. You're not there. You're here. I wish I were here. All I'll say is wait till company. That's all I'm going to say. I'm not going to give you any more. Anyway, yes, it's a fantastic replacement because it bringing Natalie into the mix and telling this part of her story and how, you know, she's paralleled with Diana, but in a different way. They have a bonding moment in Diana's psyche. Like, come on, that's good stuff.

[1:15:26] Tommy: Yeah, no, it's good. It is. So, I have watched the original opening number had a different name. It was called Let There Be Light or There Will Be Light. The original finale was called Let There Be Light. And it was and would have would have been a reprise because a lot of those themes are in the opening number. Most of the opening number stays remarkably the same, but is more of a company piece. Whereas now the written version is Diana being like, we're a family. I'm the narrator. It's my story. Here we go. It's much more book, book, book. Right. But one of the changes in what became It's Another Day, the line that is currently what doesn't kill me doesn't kill me used to be the line it is playing on what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. And like, I had, I had already always assumed that what doesn't kill me doesn't kill me was a play on what doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

[1:16:26] Jimi: Yeah, but it is one of those microcosms of like, I can build that conversation in the writer's room in my mind, where they're like, our story is not a story about what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Our story is a story about like, what doesn't kill me makes me not dead right now. Yeah. And so we need to play on that.

[1:16:42] Tommy: Totally. It's a cool one, actually, because I think what doesn't kill me makes me stronger has its own place. Sure. Because it's the biggest cliché of all clichés. Yeah. And this is a family of people not admitting anything.

[1:16:55] Jimi: But it doesn't really. Yeah, what doesn't kill me doesn't kill me is just better lyricism.

[1:17:05] Tommy: Yeah, it's better lyricism. I think it fits the story better, too. It's like, there's not in the way that we are exploding some of these, you know, stereotypes about this things, not what doesn't kill me the implication of what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Is that like, if we're talking about what the lesson in that metaphor is, is like, life's full of hardship, and you build upon it. Yeah, hardship is good for you and standard, because it makes you stronger. And to turn that metaphor on the head to say like, no, no, no, hardship happens. And it's hardship.

[1:17:39] Jimi: Yep. And that's all we have to say.

[1:17:41] Tommy: Yeah. And it's Yeah, because it's not till the finale that we get this idea of, actually, there will be light, right? We can have this, we can allow positivity, right? And feel stronger out of it. So yeah, to have that lesson said in your opening. Yeah, kind of defeat your purpose, because this is not a show about no one at the end of the show is thankful that they went through this ordeal. Whereas that happens in lots of other shows, and I think is an appropriate moral sometimes, like, you see life much brighter if you've spent more time in the darkness, which could be a moral of the show. But it is not saying that like, the only way to see a bright life is through darkness, is through hardship, saying like, sometimes darkness happens. It is terrible. And there's no moral beyond that. We can ignore, like, the moral is, sadness is sad. Grief is grief. It's inside out.

[1:18:41] Jimi: Yeah, yeah. Like, this is life. Not deal with it, but that, like, you can deal with it, even that's too positive of a light on it, I think, for me.

[1:18:56] Tommy: No, I think that is it. I think that is because that's the ending of Inside Out. Sorry to make it all about Inside Out. It's one of my favorite movies of all time. But that's the thing is, it's like, when you embrace sadness, you lead a better life.

[1:19:12] Jimi: Yeah, that's fair. I think even, I think that is certainly the moral of Inside Out. I think Next to Normal even doesn't go that far. Because it never says, like, there is an implication, because it's a piece of musical theater, and they cannot break from that form entirely. Like, this still ends with, let there be light. You know, they don't quite get to the point of kicklining, but they're all smiling by the time the curtain call happens. Which is, you know, I think very few musicals have embraced a sad or terrifying ending. And I'd love all of them for it. We look to you, Jekyll and Hyde.

[1:19:45] Tommy: I know. Or Sweeney Todd. You know, he kills Mrs. Lovett. This is terrible. Watch out.

[1:19:51] Jimi: And it's horror. So I think it can live up to that little more horror thriller. But remember, Sweeney Todd is political theater. It's Brechtian. Jekyll and Hyde is as naturalistic as they come, Tommy.

[1:20:01] Tommy: Absolutely. And what's-his-face-would-tell-you-no-different. What's his name? David Hasselhoff?

[1:20:06] Jimi: David Hasselhoff would certainly tell you no different. I think he could probably remember that he did that at some point. One of these days, we'll talk more about that.

[1:20:11] Tommy: Yeah, we're not talking about Jekyll and Hyde right now. But actually, speaking of good lyrics, the opposite of Lesley Bricusse is Brian Yorkey. And just the lyrics in this show are unreal. It's interesting because I was thinking, like, what are other really good lyrics? And I was like, obviously, you know, Sondheim and then Hamilton. Brian Yorkey isn't clever the same way Lin-Manuel Miranda and Sondheim are clever.

[1:20:47] Jimi: Exactly. It's not the wordplay. It's not the, like, ha ha ha, look how smart I am.

[1:21:00] Tommy: Right. Which definitely, you know, we're not dissing either of them, but they're 100% both guilty of. They love the fact that they're extremely intelligent people. Listen to this, you know, lyric that I've spent hours writing that is going to seem effortless. But I've put so much time at where, like, there's a song in the show which starts with Diana singing, so anyway, I'm leaving.

[1:21:25] Jimi: Yeah, exactly. Right. That is a different kind of poetry.

[1:21:29] Tommy: It is. Yeah, it's exactly that. It's exactly that. It's remarkable lyricism. And what I find really interesting, I've had four or five different conversations with people who hate the lyrics of this show. They think the lyrics are awful.

[1:21:45] Jimi: Fascinating.

[1:21:48] Tommy: It is fascinating, Tommy. And this is, I'm opening this up to the listeners. We know that our listeners want us to talk about this. So, you know, I imagine we're not going to get much back from this. I want to know, do any of you think the lyrics in this are like, and it's not even like, oh yeah, they're fine. It's like, no, they're actively bad. And I don't understand that. And I'm like, I respect you less for thinking that. I do think, I mean, this speaks to sometimes discussion about poeticism in lyrics and that, like, you can't write a poem with your lyrics because the poem is the music. And so then you've got, like, double poem and it seems far too romanticized.

[1:22:34] Jimi: Yeah, of course.

[1:22:35] Tommy: And I do think the lyrics in this are very, very pedestrian, which I could see how that would make them seem lazy.

[1:22:46] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:22:47] Tommy: But like, you know.

[1:22:48] Jimi: When you listen to it.

[1:22:50] Tommy: Even like, you play till the strings or your fingernails break. It's got an internal rhyme. It's got a Sondheim-esque internal rhyme right there.

[1:22:59] Jimi: Absolutely.

[1:22:59] Tommy: It's such a great comparison. It is filled with, like, I get a feeling about that. You know, my fingers cringe thinking about that thought.

[1:23:12] Jimi: Like, and all through the show, it's, and like stuff that I think part of the show, like, you know, didn't I see this movie with McMurphy and the nurse?

[1:23:22] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:23:22] Jimi: I'm not going to help you through that reference. You know, I'm not.

[1:23:26] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:23:26] Jimi: I am not going to hold your hand through that. You got it or you didn't and we're gone. We literally say cuckoo's nest. If you don't get it, you're not going to get it.

[1:23:33] Tommy: Right. It's past it.

[1:23:34] Jimi: And in a way for you, in a way that I think is different than something like Hamilton, which is chock-a-block full of references.

[1:23:40] Tommy: But Hamilton eases you into that and it's like, you're going to get some of these and not some of the other ones, but that's OK because that's how it works.

[1:23:51] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:23:52] Tommy: Whereas next to normal, it certainly doesn't shame you for mixing, for missing some of its few references, but it doesn't hold your hand through it.

[1:24:00] Jimi: Yeah, not at all.

[1:24:03] Tommy: It's, yeah, I just think it feels at times like lyrical genius because, for example, the break.

[1:24:13] Jimi: I mean, to be honest, all of the lyrics in the break are sensational.

[1:24:17] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:24:18] Jimi: But the idea, this idea of what happens when the cast at last comes off and then you find the break was always in another bone, when the burn is healed and the skin is not regrown. So this is kind of what we were talking about earlier, about the pairing of physical health and mental health. There's nothing different here.

[1:24:39] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:24:41] Jimi: Right.

[1:24:45] Tommy: And the fear that people have when it comes to psychiatric treatment or pharmacological treatment, it's so real and it's completely genuine because it is still new. It's an area of science that we're exploring. And so to capture that, what an interesting, incredible thing to write a song about. To capture it in a way from Diana's perspective, with such lyrical genius and effortlessness. They told me that the wiring was somehow all misfiring. Already we've got a great rhyme there. It's screwing up the signals in my brain.

[1:25:33] Jimi: Yeah. And then they told me chemistry, the juice and not the circuitry, was mixing up and making me insane. This is a layman's explanation of the very complicated problem in her brain. That is also done in meter and rhyme, effortlessly.

[1:25:43] Tommy: Exactly. In a really good rhyme.

[1:25:51] Jimi: In a great rhyme, using words that everyone understands.

[1:25:55] Tommy: Yeah. Like that is clever, but doesn't feel clever.

[1:26:02] Jimi: No, because you don't notice it. Right. It feels so effortless, which is such a joy in this thing. It really, really is. I just think they're incredible. But like I said, I'm very interested to hear if people do hate them and why. And if you do hate them, please just go and listen to it and read the lyrics.

[1:26:20] Tommy: Sure. You know what I mean? Because they're not bad. One of the interesting things on the topic of lyrics and book and Brian Yorkey in particular, Brian Yorkey's perhaps other most critically acclaimed piece is 13 Reasons Why.

[1:26:41] Jimi: He wrote that?

[1:26:45] Tommy: He wrote 13 Reasons Why. Isn't that fascinating?

[1:26:45] Jimi: That's difficult.

[1:26:52] Tommy: Right. Yeah. He certainly has found a niche in this kind of subversive adolescent subversions of suicidal ideation, right?

[1:27:02] Jimi: Jimmy's staring at your mouth agape.

[1:27:07] Tommy: I mean, he handled one significantly better than the other.

[1:27:10] Jimi: Right. It's fascinating. And so the reason I bring it up from this perspective is because Brian Yorkey is a lyricist, but not by profession.

[1:27:24] Tommy: Okay. It has certainly written other stuff. He wrote If Then, with Last Ship, which I actually really, really like.

[1:27:32] Jimi: Yeah. They both did Freaky Friday, which I particularly enjoy, and I think is their next thing that has found more critical acclaim than anything else they've worked on. If Then and Last Ship didn't really do great, but also 13 Reasons Why, right? And so it is interesting to see this combination of where you look at some of the previously old school book writer lyricists in the world, Sondheim, Lloyd Webber, Schwartz, Aarons and Flaherty, these even duos and things, and we pen them as being people of, like they are disguise masters. They can put on a genre or an idea or a story and bring it to the musical theater world.

[1:28:28] Tommy: It is interesting to watch Brian Yorkey in particular, like you look at even just all of his things. Last Ship may be an exception, but still, I don't know, has a flavor of this. This is not a fully developed thesis for me, but he's got a style and an act, but also a content, which you don't see as much in some other musical theater writers, and perhaps that should be embraced more. One of the big criticisms, say, of American Psycho is that it sounds like that Duncan Sheik sound, which was appropriate for Spring Awakening, but perhaps seems less appropriate for American Psycho, and that he could not disguise himself enough to fit whatever American Psycho is. Yorkey flips the script and seems to find the projects that he seems most successful in are the ones that are in this adolescent suburbia, you know, family, social, dynamic, mental illness world.

[1:29:39] Jimi: Yeah, I think, but even just the actual specific content there, yeah, just in terms of, like, he's a writer that likes to kind of play about with the form.

[1:29:57] Tommy: Yeah, sure.

[1:29:57] Jimi: Do you know what I mean? Like, he isn't limited to this will be X, right? He very much lives in the Sondheim world of content dictating form.

[1:30:13] Tommy: Yes, you know, because that is what makes them very distinguishable, because the four, so if you take the four of them, if you take Next to Normal, if you take If Then, Last Ship, and Freaky Friday, and then you've pointed them all out to me and said, these were all written by the same person, I'd be like, that's fascinating, hang on, what? Because they're all individually really iconic, you know?

[1:30:34] Jimi: And different. And I think part of it is he is a lyricist book writer, which I think we're seeing less of in contemporary musical theatre.

[1:30:40] Tommy: Yeah, we see much more music lyrics, and then book. And so that, and I think there's power in that. I think it's why Next to Normal is so great, is that, and why the lyrics kind of feel like the book. And if you've only ever listened to the album, and you read the script, you'll find things that you didn't know about. But it's not going to seem like and now we pause the music and go on to the scene.

[1:31:03] Jimi: Exactly, exactly. The stories, they are the stories everywhere. Yeah, you know, I mean, and one just like, if you read some of the book, that'll just give you some more, it'll give you some depth.

[1:31:13] Tommy: Yeah, it won't give you anything new.

[1:31:17] Jimi: Yeah. Just give you some depth, which is lovely. I think, obviously, we've talked a lot about Brian Yorkey, but to talk just a little bit about Tom Kitt as well.

[1:31:22] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:31:28] Jimi: Obviously, you and I, we're not music theory experts. So I'm sure there's plenty of really great intellectual stuff that can be said about, you know, me too. I know one thing that he does that someone else has told me, but I'm gonna parrot that. So he uses 7-8 a lot.

[1:31:44] Tommy: Oh, okay.

[1:31:44] Jimi: Which is like, basically like dropping a beat off of every bar. One of our show choir stalwarts was Deck the Halls in 7-8, which was mostly an experience in music theory.

[1:31:51] Tommy: That sounds horrifying.

[1:31:58] Jimi: Oh, it's a real fun song. Fa la la la la la la la la la la la la la. Yeah. But anyway, so he uses that throughout, and it creates this really cool disarming effect that you feel. You do feel it, like there's a pulse to the music of Next to Normal that is always there, and it's jumping. You hear it a lot in the break just to pull that back.

[1:32:22] Tommy: Yeah. But then one of the things that I think he does brilliantly is he barely buttons.

[1:32:30] Jimi: Yes.

[1:32:30] Tommy: And it's not a sung through.

[1:32:35] Jimi: No.

[1:32:35] Tommy: It's a book, you know, musical as we know it. It's a book musical with a bunch of scenes that end in like a bump light cue, but it's not doing that, you know, Hello Daly Avenue Cue music band thing.

[1:32:44] Jimi: Exactly.

[1:32:44] Tommy: There's no like, and it's your time to clap. And that is great because it just amps up the tension. It's one of my favorite things in theater is when, whether it's the writer or the director who makes that decision to not allow the audience to clap, it's really good because it's like, no, we're telling you a story. Listen. Right. It's great.

[1:33:04] ♪ Musical number ♪

[1:34:01] Jimi: Yeah. So before we finish up talking about the meat, I want to talk about my favorite meat.

[1:34:10] Tommy: No, we'll get in trouble. They listen to this.

[1:34:13] Jimi: Funny. Yeah. The character of Gabe, I think is just yet another example of the incredible writing in the show. Obviously, all of the characters are really interestingly written and deep. But Gabe is obviously a character unlike any other. And the fact that he is many things. He is Gabe. He is a manifestation of Deanna's illness. He's also a manifestation of Deanna's grief. And also he's a manifestation of Gabe.

[1:34:48] Tommy: Yeah. And of Dan's denial.

[1:34:56] Jimi: Exactly. So many things. And it's so well written. And just the way that he plays. So I'm not going to lie. This is how stupid I am. It took me, I would say, maybe three full listenings to Mixed to Normal to realize that Gabe had died.

[1:35:15] Tommy: Oh, I think that's so important. And it is interesting. It was in the front of my mind doing all this research again. When they introduce the performance of Next to Normal at the Tony Awards, their language surrounding describing Gabe is very specific. It says like, Deanna is, you know, grappling with her husband, Dan, and she envisions her son entering into the scene or something like that. And that's it. They don't say like, and her dad's like, they don't explain it.

[1:35:51] Jimi: Yeah, exactly. Which is important. Of all of the kind of twists. Yeah. In Broadway. It's really well maintained. Yeah. It's not everywhere.

[1:36:03] Tommy: And especially for one that like, scene three is divulged.

[1:36:08] Jimi: Yeah, exactly.

[1:36:08] Tommy: It's not like the murderer at the end of the book.

[1:36:11] Jimi: Totally. It's really, really smart. But yeah, so I hadn't realized it. So stupid. And I don't quite know what I thought was the plot. But you know that when you listen to something, you just go along with it for the music. You're like, this sounds amazing. And then you start listening to what's going on. Anyway, it's just really, really intelligent how he's worked into it with each of the characters. How he's kind of there for Natalie as this kind of icon, almost. Because his parents, her parents have put him onto this pedestal in different ways. One through denial, one through idolation. And so in Superboy and the Invisible Girl, that's their song together. He's taunting of her. He's just like this kind of British big brother type. Do you know what I mean?

[1:37:04] Tommy: Yeah. And even just the lyrics of Superboy and the Invisible Girl, you know, the only thing she says is that he's not here. Right here or there? I can't remember which one is there.

[1:37:19] Jimi: Yeah. Yeah, he's not here. I am here. Like that could be interpreted in a, he's distant. He doesn't get involved. I'm here. Right. And listen to me. Or just even in the sense of a child being to a parent who's neglecting her. I'm here. Give me attention.

[1:37:35] Tommy: Well, and even then, in the same way that Gabe sings along with Dan sometimes, the fact that Gabe is duetting Superboy and the Invisible Girl, Son of Steel and Daughter of Air, he's also saying like, yeah, yeah, you're the Invisible One and I'm Superboy.

[1:37:53] Jimi: Exactly. And it is. That's probably the thing that's going on in her head, is that they much prefer him over me. Like he's the golden boy and I'm nothing. And that's the beauty of the whole thing. It's like we're talking about him like he's a character. They're talking about him like he's a person. He's not. He is the creation. He is the manifestation of their ideas of what he might have been.

[1:38:23] Tommy: Exactly. Because he died when he was an 18 month old baby. They had no idea what he would be as a human. And yet this manifestation that is created. I love, so in the MTI libretto, I always find front and back material so fascinating because I think it's where some authors show their hands a little bit.

[1:38:45] Jimi: Absolutely, Tommy. And some people do it really well and take advantage of it and some people don't and it's a missed opportunity.

[1:38:53] Jimi: Yeah, can't wait till we talk about Hairspray. Oh, yes, absolutely. Right. So, there's a page called The Cast, four men, two women, in order of appearance, and they introduce Diana, and then everyone is introduced in relationship to her. So, it's her son, her husband, her daughter, and Henry, and doctor, maiden, and then fine. But Diana, 30s or 40s, sexy, sharp, delusional, bipolar, depressive. Her son, Gabe, almost 18, dashing, gentle, bright, playful. Everything a mother, etc., is what's written. And that is a perfect description. Stunning, isn't it? Again, God is in the details.

[1:39:39] Tommy: It's so good. It's everything a mother could, you know, which is exactly what he is, because he's everything. He's literally everything his mother has dreamed of.

[1:39:52] Jimi: Yep.

[1:39:53] Tommy: Which is that metaphor. Like, it is so poetic. I'm surprised it's not in the show.

[1:39:58] Jimi: I know. I know.

[1:40:00] Tommy: Kind of delighted that it's not.

[1:40:02] Jimi: Exactly. It's just for us.

[1:40:03] Tommy: But it's so perfect. Yeah, the whole thing is just perfect.

[1:40:07] Jimi: It really is. And just so even just the way that he kind of creeps around in, because obviously it's strange because he's not the enemy.

[1:40:15] Tommy: Right.

[1:40:16] Jimi: He's not the evil wizard, the monomyth.

[1:40:18] Tommy: He's certainly the antagonist, but he's not the evil person.

[1:40:24] Jimi: But that's the thing. He isn't.

[1:40:28] Tommy: Right. The idea of him is.

[1:40:29] Jimi: Because he doesn't exist. But even then, it's not necessarily the idea of him. It's the illness that he represents.

[1:40:38] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:40:38] Jimi: You know, I mean, it's this kind of like bigger bad.

[1:40:41] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:40:42] Jimi: That exists outwith.

[1:40:44] Tommy: It does. This is an amorphous thought that's been sitting in the back of my brain for a long time about theatre in general that I have not been able to articulate well. So this probably won't be great. But I think some of the best pieces of drama personify difficult to describe things. And that's what makes them good.

[1:41:06] Jimi: And in this example, Gabe is a personification of so many things of bipolar depressive disorder, of grief, of denial. Right.

[1:41:21] Tommy: Like he is a person who is these things.

[1:41:25] Jimi: Yes.

[1:41:26] Tommy: But he's not like walking out on stage with a sign around his neck that says grief.

[1:41:30] Jimi: Exactly.

[1:41:31] Tommy: Gabe, he's a metaphor for these things approached or like given to the audience as a person.

[1:41:39] Jimi: I think about this a lot in the interpretations of Into the Woods, and whether or not Milky White is a person or a puppet.

[1:41:45] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:41:46] Jimi: Right. And the differences that says about whether this is you can do the joke where Jack picks up Milky White and runs away with it, or whether it's a person in a cow suit who can have reactions and things.

[1:41:59] Tommy: Exactly.

[1:42:00] Jimi: And I think Into the Woods is one where like you're telling a different story if you do either way. And I think both can be appropriate. But once you make a thing a person, our brain takes a bunch of shortcuts that lets us appreciate a bunch of like really high level concepts when done well.

[1:42:20] Tommy: Exactly. Yeah, completely. No, you're totally right. You're totally right. Just using the context of the next to normal, if you don't have bipolar depressive disorder, you can still appreciate what it's like to not have it, but to understand how it interacts with your life, for example. Because Gabe, this idea of him being beautiful, I think is very important.

[1:42:56] Jimi: Very attractive. Very loving. Because a lot of the time, your mental illness isn't something that you hate. You do cuddle it, you know what I mean? Because it's your life. I mean, it's such a significant part of your life. So that's very important.

[1:43:15] Tommy: And the fact that he, for example, in I'm Alive, this kind of, you know, as an 18 year old or 17 year old, this kind of burst of energy and that bravado that you would have as a 17 year old is 100% a thing. But this idea of him being like, I exist. I am here and I feed on the fear that's behind your eyes, like all of these things that ring completely true if you're just this teenager full of bravado and think you're unstoppable. But also a mental illness where in that early stages where you can't get control of it, you just feel as unstoppable.

[1:43:59] Jimi: Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's one of the buys of the bipolar is the manic episodes, you know, the mountains, the highest highs.

[1:44:08] Tommy: Exactly.

[1:44:08] Jimi: Is that like unstoppable motivation. And it is like, I think one of the great tragedies of the show is that we see Diana be a really, really good mother to Gabe.

[1:44:21] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:44:22] Jimi: And like Gabe more than Natalie.

[1:44:24] Tommy: 100% because that's what she knows, you know? And it's like a two part thing of the, maybe the guilt of whatever happened and losing her son and being like, well, I'm going to have these delusions where I'm winning and I'm taking care of him and he's happy and we get on so well. But also in the sense of her and her illness and not facing up to it the right way and standing up to it, letting it kind of control. And like, even when you hit the end, you know, when we're falling action, like between I think climax to falling action, like what was his name? What was his name? You know, appropriately so Diana never interacts with Gabe after she forgets him. He's around, but like they don't have conversations anymore.

[1:45:13] Jimi: Exactly. But that's the thing. The song Aftershocks is an incredible song.

[1:45:19] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:45:20] Jimi: And again, just the lyric, but what it is in terms of mental illness is so good. And just like the pun on shock, because we've had shock therapy, just aftershocks in general, what they mean, the fact that, you know, mental illness is something that is ongoing. There's no say goodbye to that. You're done.

[1:45:40] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:45:42] Jimi: And it's genius.

[1:45:44] Tommy: Yeah. No, it like the way, this is when Alice Ripley has her kind of manic acceptance speech at the Tonys. She reads a quote from like, that's written on the Kennedy Center wall. That is something along the lines of like, when the dust has settled on civilization, we will not be remembered for our wars or our economies or our politics will be remembered by our art and what we've contributed to society. And the way that Next to Normal can take something that is misunderstood and misappreciated and stigmatized and all these things and open it up like a flower in a way where you can appreciate it and understand it without needing to like pull out a textbook, without needing to like sit in a lecture hall.

But like, you can appreciate the science and the like, logical struggles behind all of this, also alongside appreciating the mental and socio-emotional struggles attached to it. And it becomes so appropriate when it is about mental illness, where both of those things are so inextricably tied. And so it's such a good show, Jimmy.

[1:47:07] Jimi: Yeah, it is. It's the price we pay to feel. The price of love is lost, but still we pay. We love anyway.

[1:47:37] ♪ Musical number: "There Will Be Light" — performed by Next to Normal Cast ♪

[1:49:23] Tommy: So, Tommy, that was Next To Normal.

[1:49:26] Jimi: That was Next To Normal.

[1:49:28] Tommy: Wow.

[1:49:30] Jimi: It's a lot. I don't think we say this on microphone enough.

[1:49:36] Tommy: Yes.

[1:49:36] Jimi: I am really thankful that we can talk about some of these things with each other.

[1:49:41] Tommy: Me too. Yeah, I really appreciate the hours that we spent.

[1:49:48] Jimi: Hours, and hours, and hours, and hours, and hours, and hours.

[1:49:53] Tommy: Mostly pushing what would be Scotland Dawn.

[1:49:58] Jimi: Yes. It's dark, though, so that's not bad.

[1:50:01] Tommy: It is dark now. Also, Scotland Dawn is a new war movie I'm starting.

[1:50:06] Jimi: I really like it.

[1:50:07] Tommy: Scotland Dawn, what's that flower you have?

[1:50:12] Jimi: Could it be?

[1:50:15] Tommy: Man, the Jonas Brothers are on tour again. Is that their new song?

[1:50:18] Jimi: I hope so. But no, you're right. To ruin a sincere moment, I agree, because there's not many people that would listen to me talk about the intricacies of Brian Yorkey's work.

[1:50:33] Tommy: Fair. Sure. Yeah, absolutely.

[1:50:36] Jimi: I got a quiz question for you.

[1:50:38] Tommy: Excellent.

[1:50:39] Jimi: It relates to the show we're going to talk about next week in a total shocker.

[1:50:43] Tommy: That's novel.

[1:50:46] Jimi: All right, buckle up.

[1:50:50] Tommy: I'm a Foley artist.

[1:50:51] Jimi: There you go. That's beautiful. Your wallah is stunning.

[1:50:56] Tommy: I don't know that.

[1:50:57] Jimi: Oh, we'll talk about wallah later.

[1:50:58] Tommy: Great.

[1:50:59] Jimi: Despite popular assumptions to the contrary, this musical is not the first musicalized mashup of this author's work. A previously created TV special stars, among other people, Kathy Najimy, Christopher Lloyd, Robin Williams and an entire gospel choir. What musical is the second musicalized mashup of this author's work?

[1:51:25] Tommy: Well, I understood that.

[1:51:26] Jimi: I'm glad you did.

[1:51:28] Tommy: Exactly.

[1:51:29] Jimi: Hey, if you would like to get in touch with us, you absolutely can. And please do. Our show Twitter is at Jim Antomic, which is J-I-M-A-N-D-T-O-M-I-C. Or you can join in our Reddit discussion. The links are all in the show notes in your podcatcher right now or over at jimantomic.com. And while you're over there, you can check out our Patreon. If you'd like to financially support the show, we are always so thankful for our patrons on Patreon.

[1:51:57] Tommy: Also, as always, reviews on Apple Podcasts are one of the most helpful free things you can do to help out the show.

[1:52:05] Jimi: Whenever I'm having a down day, one of the things I actually do is read reviews on Apple Podcasts of our show.

[1:52:11] Tommy: I'm the same, but it's annoying because I've got more from the states that I can't access.

[1:52:17] Jimi: I know.

[1:52:18] Tommy: So, hey, if you're listening from the UK, please leave a review so I can get more.

[1:52:22] Jimi: So that Jimmy feels happier in life.

[1:52:25] Tommy: Exactly.

[1:52:26] Jimi: But what would make me so happy is if you just tell all your pals to join in our conversation and listen along with us.

[1:52:33] Tommy: That'd be fab.

[1:52:34] Jimi: Absolutely.

[1:52:35] Tommy: And that's all we got for you. We'll talk to you next time.

[1:52:37] Jimi: Thanks for listening.

[1:52:38] Tommy: And, of course, cheers!

[1:52:40] Jimi: Cheers!

[1:52:55] Tommy: Gassy boy!

[1:52:57] Jimi: I'm a little gassy boy!

[1:52:59] Tommy: I'm a little gassy boy!