A review by booksandbigideas
Next to Normal by Tom Kitt, Brian Yorkey

5.0

GUYS. Guys. If you, like me, were ever worried about this show from hearing some of the songs out of context or because Yorkey wrote the 13 Reasons Why TV show...fear not. I can say with both my own experience and all the research I've done as a dramaturg for an upcoming student performance of this show (!!!) that it gets everything right (although the specific diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorders has changed since it was written). Also, it's so so good from both a literary and viewer perspective. I cried and we haven't even rehearsed yet so I'm going to be a mess. So many parts of this mean so much to me personally, though I'm not going to elaborate (at least right now). Oh, and the music's pretty awesome, too. (My voice range is most similar to Gabe's, so I can rock "I'm Alive.")

Can Brian Yorkey go back to writing musicals now?? (I also love If/Then.) And please stop taking "My Psychopharmacologist and I" and "I Miss the Mountains" out of context, as great as they are musically.