Unique path to Broadway for 'Normal' - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety.
When a new musical ends up on Broadway, chances are it's been road-tested either in an out-of-town tryout or an Off Broadway warm-up. "Next to Normal" took an idiosyncratic path to the Rialto: It got both. The $4 million tuner, opening April 15 at the Booth Theater, first played Gotham in an early 2008 run at Second Stage that raised commercial expectations. But the show made an unusual detour to a regional, Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., for a wintertime run that helped give creatives time to significantly rework the material. The New York return of the ambitious, small-scale musical, a six-actor show starring Alice Ripley as a woman battling bipolar disorder, caps a development process that has seen creators Tom Kitt (music) and Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics) rethinking and retooling for about a decade. It also lands the show in a Broadway season that has no shortage of large-scale new tuners ("Billy Elliot," "Shrek the Musical," the upcoming "9 to 5") and revivals ("West Side Story," "Guys and Dolls," "Hair") that could threaten to overshadow an intimate show with a more indie sensibility. Such underdog fare has been scarce this season: So far, the list includes the summer's long-departed "[title of show]" and "The Story of My Life," the short-lived two-hander whose quick demise at the Booth opened up the venue for "Normal."
