Tony-Winning Production Comes to the Ahmanson November 23 through January 2
LOS ANGELES – “Next to Normal,” Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s Tony-winning musical about a family's struggle with a mother's mental illness, is at the Ahmanson Theatre from November 23 through January 2, launching a 36-week tour in the U.S. and Canada. Tickets are still available from Al Brooks Tickets (www.albrooks.com) for the “Next to Normal” tour.
The musical -- which Times theater critic Charles McNulty described as “dramatically ambitious and sublimely staged” -- won three 2009 Tony Awards, including best score, best orchestrations and best actress in a musical for Alice Ripley as the mother. It received 11 nominations overall, and was also winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for drama.
Reporting from New York — In a rehearsal room several floors above 42nd Street, actress Alice Ripley had just finished crying her way through a particularly heartbreaking scene in the show. Still sobbing, she started thinking about what she was doing, and, she says, "I can't believe I said yes, I would do this again. What was I thinking?"
Getting ready to portray bipolar suburbanite Diana Goodman on tour as she had on Broadway, Ripley knew what she was in for. "Playing Diana feels like I'm walking out into traffic," she says. "You know that the bus is going to hit you, but you just have to step out in front of it anyway."
So after leaving the Broadway production in July, the 46-year-old performer is preparing to again play Diana, the role that she has played since its first readings and off-Broadway performances.
"Next to Normal's" first song lyric may be, "They're the perfect loving family," but within moments, any semblance of normality is gone. Homemaker Diana, furiously making sandwiches that soon cover not just the table but the floor as well, is the fulcrum on which a yearning husband, a troubled daughter and a demanding son balance precariously.
In Los Angeles, as in New York, Ripley will be onstage in nearly every scene, sometimes lusty, sometimes comatose, plus singing a good percentage of the show's nearly 40 songs. Like the musical itself, she's alternately funny and spirited, angry and sad as she rollicks through a rock score punctuated with lyrical ballads and gentle melodies.
“Al Brooks Tickets will have ‘Next to Normal’ tickets for our clients and we will have a great selection of theater events tickets throughout the run.” stated Jeff Brooks, President of Al Brooks Tickets. “It’s going to be a great, dramatic show which Los Angeles audiences are not going to want to miss. We can get theater tickets, and it all comes down to our sources – and they are the best in the business.”
Al Brooks Tickets is located in the Wilshire Grand Hotel at 900 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 104, Los Angeles, CA 90017 and provides tickets for venues throughout the US and internationally. They can be reached by phone at 800-341-2766 or 213-626-5863, by email at customer_service@albrooks.com or by fax at 213-626-4808. For more information on concert tickets, please access their website at www.albrooks.com.
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