'Next to Normal' Announced for May 2012

ADELAIDE COLLABORATION TO PRODUCE

NEXT TO NORMAL

Media Release 15/12/12

The Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning rock musical Next to Normal will premiere in Adelaide during May 2012 at the State Opera Studio.  

The production, which explores mental illness in a suburban family context, will be a collaboration between award-winning theatre company Six Foot Something Productions and film and theatre production house The Factory.  

“Next to Normal is dramatic, mold smashing theatre that deals with serious mental health issues”, says director and designer David Lampard.

 “It is musical theatre that is absolutely written for ‘now’, engaging with ideas and emotions that are all too frequently experienced by us and those around us, but rarely given any serious stage time – especially in a musical.”

Next to Normal follows the life of a suburban mother dealing with a worsening bipolar disorder, and how that condition and its treatment (including psychoactive drugs and electroconvulsive therapy) affect her family.

The musical opened on Broadway in 2009 and won three Tony awards including Best Original Score. It also received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (2010) – one of only eight musicals to ever receive this award.

Successful productions have since been performed around the world, including an extended season produced by Melbourne Theatre Company in 2011.

The Adelaide season will be a non-replica production, drawing on local talent to create and stage a thrilling and brave visual world and emotionally-rich musical soundscape.

“David (Lampard) is becoming well-known for his extravagant, experimental – but always totally approachable – theatre designs and musical director Peter John’s orchestras are phenomenally sublime confections”, said co-producer Kate Warren.

Warren’s company The Factory has just completed production on the South Australian Film Corporation funded short film Child Focused Dreaming, with a number of other shorts in production.

For Six Foot Something Productions, this will be their third musical (after Elegies: A Song Cycle and The Last Five Years) in their continued undertaking to produce high-quality ensemble musical theatre pieces in Adelaide, providing local artists with a place to hone professional skills.

Open auditions for cast will be held in late January 2012.