Next to Normal: A Musical I Will Never Be Normal About

 It's just another DAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

As much as I love having interests and passions, my hyper-fixations border on insanity. I've gone through periods where I'm unable to eat, sleep or think about anything other than my current fixation. Well, this morning when I skipped breakfast and thought only about one thing the entire bus ride to school, I knew it had happened again. Dear reader, please save me, for I am diving head first into a new obsession, and it's all thanks to PBS.

Yes, you heard that right. The Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS, is the root of this misery, after they released a proshot of the musical Next to Normal. Honestly, the title itself describes how I feel about this show. I am so unable to be normal about it, but at the same time I pretend that I'm not spiraling into madness, because nobody around me knows who the Goodman family are.

Okay, now that that's over, let's talk about the show. Next to Normal is a rock musical with music by Tom Kitt and book/lyrics by Brian Yorkey. It first premiered in 2008 (THE YEAR I WAS BORN AYYY), went on to win three Tony Awards in 2009, even snagging the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2010, something only a handful of musicals have ever done. Why? Because it dared to go where very few musicals had gone before: directly into the messy, heartbreaking, and deeply human world of mental illness.

At its core, the show follows the Goodman family: Diana, a mother struggling with bipolar disorder; Dan, her husband who desperately tries to hold the family together; Natalie, their daughter who feels invisible; and Gabe, their son, whose presence in the story I won’t spoil if you’re brand new to the musical, but trust me when I say... it's insane. 

Unlike other musicals that paint struggles in broad, metaphorical strokes, Next to Normal refuses to sugarcoat. It doesn’t glamorize Diana’s illness, nor does it give us an easy “everything works out” resolution. Instead, it shows the toll mental health takes on every single member of a family, the ripple effect of grief, trauma, and survival.

The songs themselves are devastatingly good. “I Miss the Mountains” is Diana’s yearning for the highs and lows of her emotions, even though they’re destructive. “You Don’t Know” captures the impossibility of explaining pain to someone who’s never felt it. And “I Am the One” and “Maybe (Next to Normal)” are gut punches that leave you crying while still humming the melody hours later. It’s the kind of music that burrows under your skin and refuses to leave.

For me, what makes the show so effective is how it balances raw vulnerability with dark humor. There are moments where you laugh through tears, because the writing never forgets that even in the middle of crisis, people still crack jokes, still argue about dinner, still live. That balance makes the Goodman family feel painfully, achingly real.

Let me be clear: proshots are dangerous. You think, “Oh, I’ll just watch this once.” Next thing you know, you’re three hours deep into YouTube lyric videos, trying to belt Alice Ripley’s riffs in your bedroom, and searching for academic essays about the portrayal of mental illness in musical theatre. That’s where I am right now. Thanks, PBS.

And maybe that’s the beauty of Next to Normal. It’s not a spectacle show with flashy choreography or glittering costumes. It’s just six actors, a small band, and a story that could shatter you if you let it. And once you let it, it never really leaves.

So here I am, skipping breakfast, staring out of bus windows like I’m in a music video, and completely consumed by Next to Normal. And honestly? I wouldn’t have it any other way. Musicals like this remind me why I fell in love with theatre in the first place, it’s not just about entertainment; it’s about empathy. It’s about seeing yourself and others more clearly, even when it hurts.

I don’t know when this hyperfixation will end. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a few months, maybe never. But for now, I’ll be here, replaying “Light” on loop and trying (and failing) to be normal about Next to Normal. 

PS: If you made it this far, please read one more paragraph. Natalie Goodman is the most relateable character I have seen in my entire life. Every emotion I've ever felt from 13 to 16 was neatly wrapped up into the character of Natalie. Her song 'Superboy and the Invisible Girl' breaks me every single time, especially when her brother begins to sing the main vocals, reducing Natalie to a harmony in her own song. It's the tragedy within a tragedy, the poor child caught in between the mess of her paranoid parents. 

It only hurts when I breathe, it only hurts when I try, it only hurts when I think, it only hurts when I cry.