Next to Normal

By Larissa Heron

9th Grade, School of the Future

Next to Normal is a fascinating story about Diana, an erratic bipolar suburban mom, who tries to hold the threads of her family together.

Diana has been depressed for years. Her psychiatrist prescribes medication and finally resorts to horrific treatment to help Diana overcome her condition. Diana fails to improve and the family plunges into chaotic mayhem.

Meanwhile, Diana’s daughter, Natalie, feels ignored—she focuses on schoolwork and an upcoming piano recital instead of dealing with what is going on in her family. Dan, Natalie’s father, tries to help Diana get better and attempts to return the family to how it used to be.

From the outside, this family seems perfect, but when you get a glimpse inside, it is far from normal. The dramatic rock music accompanies the powerful voices of the performers. All of the actors are convincing in portraying their characters.

I highly recommend Next to Normal to teenagers. Although the content is serious, the performance is upbeat and thought-provoking.

Music by Tom Kitt, book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey.

TICKETS: $25 lottery rush • Booth Theatre, 222 W. 45th St. www.nexttonormal.com

Next to Normal Dramaturgy

By Sabrina Khan

*Warning – this article contains spoilers about the play*

Next to Normal is a rock musical about a psychologically ill mother and the conflicts she faces as she and her family cope with her problems. The musical bursts with powerful language portraying the gravity of grief, frustration, depression, and love this family feels and shares.

Next to Normal was originally called Feeling Electric when it was conceived as a 10-minute sketch in 2002. The story then revolved around suburban mother Diana Goodman receiving electroshock therapy as her husband Dan and daughter Natalie react to it and its effects on her. This draft focused heavily on a criticism of the medical practice, instead of the family’s pain.

It transformed into that much later with several changes through readings at different stages of its journey. And in 2008, Next to Normal was produced off Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre for the first time under its current name.

Throughout the show, Diana undergoes many different treatments because psychological disorders often cannot be classified as single illnesses with simple labels. Each person experiences their conditions differently and is treated on a custom basis, often mixing drugs and therapy. On a particular tragic occasion, Diana has a serious breakdown and her doctor recommends electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

ECT is the standard course of treatment for drug-resistant patients who are imminently suicidal. One side effect of ECT is memory loss, which is a major point of contention in the story. Diana decides to go through with it, and though she seems to improve, she also suffers considerable amnesia. The treatment ends up solving little, and the show portrays only shows the downsides of the practice.

Next to Normal so attempts to have a musical conversation about psychological disorders and the means to alleviate them through the breakdown of this family. It’s worth gaining a fair knowledge about the issues it discusses before going in blind to this heartbreaking production.

In The Heights Dramaturgy

By Christa Tandana

There’s a new face “in the heights” and her name is Jordin Sparks. The American Idol winner and pop sensation is now playing Nina in In the Heights on Broadway. Jordin made her theatrical debut on August 19th and will continue until November 14th.

There has always been a tendency for movie stars and singers to try their hand at theatre. Some have been successful and others have been...less so. In fact, just before Jordin came on the scene, High School Musical star Corbin Bleu had a run as Usnavi. Corbin was a hit and his run was extended for three months.

Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda started writing In the Heights during his sophomore year at Wesleyan University. Four years later, it became the first original musical on Broadway about the Dominican community in Washington Heights. It went on to win four Tony Awards, including Best Musical, in 2008.

Jordin and Corbin bring new young faces to the theatre - and isn’t that just what theatre needs?

The Addams Family Dramaturgy

By Christa Tandana

Do you remember that cartoon show The Addams Family? Is the theme song stuck in your head now?

Well, guess what? The ghoulish cartoon about the beyond abnormal family has been transformed into a musical which is now on Broadway, starring Nathan Lane as Gomez and Bebe Neuwirth as his wife Morticia!

Before it was even a television series, The Addams Family was an original single-panel cartoon that appeared in The New Yorker Magazine in the 1930s. It was created by an American cartoonist named Charles Addams. These cartoons were about a not-so-typical American family. But as far as they were concerned, what was normal?

The cartoon evolved into a television series in 1964 which lasted for two seasons. The original characters in the cartoon were nameless, but Charles Addams was asked to come up with the names for them for the television show. The bizarre family did not get their own cartoon show until 1973. After this, the family went on to star in other cartoon shows, tv movies and films and have been part of pop culture history.

The most recent of The Addams Family is now on the Broadway stage. The musical opened on April 8th, 2010, and was recently announced to hit the road on a national tour in September of 2011.

American Idiot Dramaturgy

By Christa Tandana

Green Day is back onstage…on Broadway? Yes, my friends, it’s true! The hit song “American Idiot” is also now the name of the newest rock musical to hit Broadway!

Packed with angst and set to a punk rock soundtrack, American Idiot is certainly not your average trip to the theatre. The story is a coming-of-age story about American youth in suburbia who are trying to find meaning in a post 9/11 world.

Director Michael Mayer came up with the idea for this show by listening to Green Day's Grammy Award winning album. He then collaborated with Billy Joel Armstrong from the band to write the book for the show.

Michael Mayer won a Tony Award for Best Director of Spring Awakening. John Gallagher Jr., who played Melchior in Spring Awakening, is now starring in American Idiot as Johnny. Rebecca Naomi Jones, who was in the rock musical Passing Strange, is now playing Whatsername – (Note: I didn’t make a mistake, that’s the character’s actual name.) These are just a few names of the best and talented in theatre today – and they all collaborated on one show!

Fences Dramaturgy

by Sabrina Khan

Fences, by August Wilson, is a 1983 play that reflects of the African American struggle for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—rights owed to every US citizen—during the Civil Rights Movement era. Set in 1957 through 1965 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the play explores complex themes of family conflicts and relationships, unwavering friendship during trying times, and integration among blacks and whites.

The play portrays the reality of the Black experience in the US in the midst and wake of Jim Crow laws. One such way the play alludes to historical context to serve as the foundation of the story is through the family name “Maxson,” a play on the words Mason and Dixon, from the Mason Dixon line, which was an imaginary border that separated the slave states from the free in 1820. It conveys the connection Troy bears between the unjust South he had leaves early on to become an urban citizen and the North that serves him little better.

Late playwright August Wilson, a prolific and influential writer to this day, told such a story by weaving together the threads that were the conditions of his own life. Wilson was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1945 and was raised in an environment where he became intimately familiar with poverty and racial discrimination. A remarkably intelligent individual, Wilson felt his academic curriculum unchallenging and often encountered prejudice in school. He educated himself in the local library, immersing himself in great works, and wrote poetry and short stories. Though Wilson wanted to be a writer, he and his mother were at odds because she wanted him to be a lawyer, and so he was compelled to leave home. He then enlisted in the US Army in 1962 for a year and returned to working odd jobs afterward.

In the 1960s, Wilson established himself as a playwright through the Yale School of Drama where the Dean of the Drama School, Lloyd Richards, saw extreme potential in him. Wilson and Richards collaborated on Broadway, and Wilson created the first of many works thereafter, Black Cart and the Sacred Hills. Fences soon followed, along with Joe Turner's Come and Gone, The Piano Lesson, and more. Fencesand The Piano Lesson both won Pulitzer Prizes for Drama in 1987 and 1990 respectively.

Fences opened in 1987 to great critical acclaim, and earned many Tony Awards, including Best Play. Since then, an entirely new cast has taken the responsibility to show another generation the still extremely relevant and poignant the story of Fences.

Race Dramaturgy

by Jahnesha Huertas

David Mamet’s plays Oleanna, Race, and Speed-The Plow have countless similarities. Not only does Mamet shine light on the dynamics of power, class, and authority between men and women, but the driving catalyst of his plot is almost always the sinister actions of a female. Whether this is the manifestations of sexist views on the behalf of the playwright is not completely apparent. Mamet shows women using their assets and positions in society to take advantage of male authorities.

In Oleanna, Carol, is a college student who can't handle the pressures of college and seeks out extra help from her professor. She makes it very clear that it is unfair that the authorities who hold the power to decide if she fails are human beings just like herself - they are people who aren't less lacking in their perfections, so why do they hold so much power over her and society? Susan in Race is also a young woman, an intern to be exact, and is surrounded by men in the workplace. She is the one with less professional experience, yet she ends up being the biggest threat to the case. Karen in Speed-The-Plow portrays herself as pure and naïve and is significantly younger than Gould, the film producer, who is obviously attracted to her. She wants a film idea to be produced and she knows that she can use her sexuality to get what she wants. She is very honest and upfront with Gould about his desires and romanticizes his need for love as virtuous. She makes him think that they both are searching for the same thing.

Mamet has a very specific formula. All of these plays have only one woman in them and he places the female in a male-dominated atmosphere. Mamet gives most of the social and professional power to the men in his pieces. By making Carol the student, Susan the eager intern and Karen the secretary, they seem the least threatening. His plays communicate that still in today’s world, men hold most of the power. Mamet puts his female characters at different social statuses than their male counterparts to mirror the dynamics of authority in the real world and their efforts on their inferior subjects. Also, Mamet makes age a prominent factor in all the characters of his plays - the women are all the youngest.

Race takes this a step further by making race a prominent issue in the plot. One of Susan’s mentors is also black like herself. By doing this, Mamet makes the statement that gender trumps race. Even though both characters are black, Susan’s position does not hinder her efforts to stand up for the alleged rape victim - another black woman. Both characters are more married to the bigger picture than their current situations. They are willing to risk everything to prove a point. Even though the alleged rapist never commits foul play against Susan personally, she still wants to make him an example.

Susan’s character challenges the definition of right and wrong. She has a very strong feeling that the alleged rapist is indeed guilty, however, she doesn’t act on her strong emotions until after her mentor asks her to play the victim in a reenactment of the encounter. Such an act would be her admitting that a white man was innocent of the rape of another black woman. Susan believes that since the alleged rapist confessed to the crime, thus proving that he was guilty, all of her foul play up until that point simply does not count. Susan is actually an aid in uncovering the truth. Her male colleagues are loyal to their client, but not necessarily loyal to the truth. As lawyers, they aren't interested in revealing the truth, they only want to protect their version of the truth.

The female characters in Race, Oleanna, and Speed-The-Plow are more loyal to the principles of their life situations than to the situations themselves. Susan, Karen and Carol are interested in making a statement about justice and truth in the society that we live in and Mamet uses them as a literary device to not only forward the plot, but as a symbol. Mamet shows that though men do not hold all of the power, woman are still highly underestimated. Mamet's female characters show that it doesn’t matter how mature and professional a male may be - a younger woman who appears defenseless can fool any man into doing what she wants.

A View From the Bridge Dramaturgy

by Christa Tandana

Did you ever imagine Scarlett Johansson on Broadway? Well, she is now, starring in A View from the Bridge alongside Liev Schreiber.

Enter the world of Eddie Carbone (Schreiber), a longshoreman who lives with his wife, Beatrice, and his orphaned niece, Catherine (Johansson), in an Italian American neighborhood in Red Hook, Brooklyn in the mid-1950's.

The 1950's were the age of McCarthyism. Citizens were scared of being considered a communist, coming into the country was extremely difficult and immigration laws and procedures were harsh and tightly enforced.

Arthur Miller, the playwright of A View from the Bridge, grew up in Brooklyn and had a particular fascination with the community of longshoremen in Red Hook. Before he wrote A View from the Bridge, Miller wrote a screenplay in 1950 called “The Hook”. The film was supposed to be about corruption on the docks and was never produced because Miller refused to change the villains from corrupt union officials to communists to give it a more “pro-American” feel.

A View from the Bridge was then introduced in 1955 as a one act play on Broadway. Since then, it has been made into a movie and performed as an opera.

The last Broadway production was done in 1997 and starred Anthony LaPaglia, Allison Janney, and the late Brittany Murphy. It won several awards including a Tony for Best Revival of a Play and Best Leading Actor in a Play for LaPaglia.

Arthur Miller has written such famous plays as All My Sons and Death of a Salesman. A View from the Bridge may not be his most famous play and one might ask why there is any need for another revival, but with a new cast and new director, this might just be a new way at looking at this kitchen-sink drama!

Memphis Dramaturgy

by Sabrina Khan

Memphis, a new musical that soulfully narrates the birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, is Broadway’s live history book of a time when music engaged the nation to acknowledge and take action
against racial discrimination.

In the show, young Huey Calhoun has a passion for rhythm and blues, and he visits an underground black club to listen to music. There he meets Felicia Farrell, a young black singer, who becomes Huey’s inspiration to bring “race music” to mainstream culture. Although the genre gains instant popularity among American youth, Huey is constantly met with hostility from conservative (often older) white people who want to censor it from the media.

Based on actual accounts, Memphis is set in a period of American history spanning The Great Migration, leading into the Civil Rights Movement, all amidst the origins of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

During the years of 1910-1970, over six and a half million black migrants moved from the South to the North in the hopes of escaping segregation and gaining greater standards of living. In 1910, 80% of the black population lived in the South, and because of The Great Migration, by 1970, only 25% remained. Unfortunately, the North didn’t offer the haven the migrants had hoped for and racism was rampant.

Facing discrimination in all walks of life, harsh treatment from employers, violence from the Ku Klux Klan, and segregation in the South, African Americans began to fight for equal opportunities and rights. Major strides were made in this fight: the Brown v. Board of Education decision that declared segregation in schools unconstitutional, Rosa Parks’ protest and successful Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Kansas, to name a few. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s paved the way for greater change in the next decade.

Finally, Rock ‘n’ Roll emerged as a youthful and rebellious call for change that defied the structure and rules of the past generation. The music enveloped all that conservative America tried to suppress - a sense of freedom and raw energy that was heavily influenced by black musical roots. A fusion of rhythm and blues, soul and gospel, Rock ‘n’ Roll, was much too political and risqué, but radio stations, a platform for divide, were willing to take a chance on it and made legends of artists like Elvis Presley. With a voice criticized for sounding “too black”, Elvis sang and danced controversy in his tunes and demonstrated the feel of the time. And when disc jockey Alan Freed coined the term Rock ‘n’ Roll in the early 1950s, he made an amazing addition to the recording industry and mainstream media.

Read a review of Memphis here

and an interview with the stars here

Alvin Ailey Dramaturgy

by Jahnesha Huertas

The mission of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is to establish a cultural community that emphasizes the humanity and beauty of African American heritage and diverse cultures to unite people of all races, ages, and backgrounds. Founder Alvin Ailey began creating pieces that drew from his Texan background that emphasized the blues, gospels and spirituals. He called these inspirations ‘blood memories.” Throughout his lifetime, Ailey created 79 ballets and emphasized that the mission of his company was not only to showcase his original works, but to recreate works of the past that were important for modern audiences. In all, over 200 works by more than 70 choreographers have been performed by The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

The Understudy Dramaturgy

by Sabrina Khan 

Theresa Rebeck’s The Understudy, a satirical comedy about the least coveted role in a play, portrays theatre’s social pyramid through the imaginary pages of a nonexistent Franz Kafka play. 20^th century Prague fiction writer, Kafka, is known for his magical realistic manner of writing that exhibit a senseless direction. His major works are The Metamorphosis (1912), The Trial (1925), and The Castle (1926), all of which are alluded to in The Understudy. To express this magical realism, their protagonists undergo strange experiences in a dream world that they cannot escape from. Kafka manages to make these stories sound completely credible.

Born in 1883 into a large and dysfunctional middle-class Jewish family, Kafka developed a brooding and pessimistic outlook apparent in his novels. He held a few “bread jobs,” as described by his overbearing father, for doing things just to pay the bills. He also studied law and earned a degree in the subject. He worked as a law clerk for civil and criminal courts and learned a great deal about the government and justice system, which he heavily incorporated in his novels. Later in his life, he suffered from tuberculosis and left his works to close friend, Max Brod, whom he’d met in law school. He’d asked Brod to burn them, but luckily, Brod did just the opposite, and we owe him for the incredible contributions Kafka has made to literature.

To better understand the underlying concepts of The Understudy, one must understand the essence of Kafka’s texts. Kafka’s works convey a distortion of family, a lack of trust in the law, and a pessimistic view of bureaucracy (which he saw as a tangled web deceiving citizens). For instance, Josef K, the protagonist in The Trial, is caught in this web when he is convicted of certain charges and never learns the nature of his crime. The character known only as K in The Castle, is a man who struggles with authorities for a job in a castle and eventually dies before competing the task. Tragic hero, Gregor Samsa, is a man who becomes an insect overnight in The Metamorphosis, and faces a family that he realizes barely cares for him although he has sacrificed all his wishes just to satisfy their needs.

Jake and Harry’s fictional role in The Understudy envelops all three of these characters. Both share a part that shows a despairing and alienated man undergoing an investigation before ultimately losing his mind.

Finian's Rainbow Dramaturgy

By Jahnesha Huertas 

Finian’s Rainbow was originally produced in 1947. One part of the story is that a leprechaun turns a racist senator into a black person to understand the hurt he has caused. In the original production, the white actor playing the senator wore black-face to show his magical transformation from a white man to a black man. This caused bad press for the show because people thought it was encouraging racism. Not just audiences agreed, but the NAACP was also angered by what they perceived was a negative portrayal of blacks. In the current revival, two different actors have been cast to solve this problem - a white actor portrays the senator before his transformation and a black actor portrays him after the magical occurrence.

Fela! Dramaturgy

by Christa Tandana

Fela Kuti was a singer, composer, political and human rights activist, and musician.  He was considered a pioneer of funk and inventor of Afrobeat music, a mix of jazz, funk, and African influence.

Born in Nigeria in 1938, Fela was raised by his political activist parents. He changed his middle name to Anikulapo, which means "he who carries death in his pouch”. At the age of 20, he was sent to London to study medicine, but studied music instead.  There, he formed a band called Koola Lobitos, which he later renamed “Nigeria ‘70” and “Africa ‘70”. Through this band, Fela gave birth to Afrobeat and took the world by storm. In 1969, Fela took the band on a 10-city tour in America.

Both Fela's music and his lifestyle were provocative and controversial. Whether people liked him or not, they knew who he was. He thrived off of controversy and activism and lived in rebellion to society and the government. He formed a commune in Nigeria called the Kalakuta Republic, which he declared was independent from the country. He believed in polygamy and, at one point had 27 wives.

Fela opened up "The Shrine," a nightclub, where he would perform for hours on end. His music was often politically charged. One song, Zombie, attacked the Nigerian military on their methods:

Zombie no go go, unless you tell am to go.

Zombie no go stop, unless you tell am to stop.

Zombie no go turn, unless you tell am to turn.

Zombie no go think, unless you tell am to think.

Tell ‘em to go straight.

Due to his loud political voice, the Nigerian government sanctioned an attack on Fela's compound in 1977. Soldiers violently beat Fela and his wives and threw his mother out a window. They burned down his commune, including his instruments and master tapes.

Fela died in 1997 of complications from AIDS, but his contributions to the society and the world of music put him down in history as one of the greatest African icons.

Fela Kuti was also not your average person and neither is the show based on his life.

Read a review of Fela here!