Next to Normal

My sister Jillian is doing student teaching in DC this semester, and had a bunch of school off this week because of the snow and the holiday weekend, so she decided to take the bus out for a little visit. On Saturday, we went to try and get the Wicked lottery for the matinee, and of course, didn't get it. So we walked over to see if we could get Next to Normal tickets. When we got there, we found that they were having a lottery as well, and of course, we didn't get picked again. But we were able to get cheap tickets for that afternoon anyway.

This is a new musical from 2009, and they won the Tony for best musical score. I had heard clips and knew that it was pretty alternative and different from any other musical, but was still really intrigued, although didn't really know what to expect. Well, I loved it. It is kind of a sad story, and a little more intense than your average musical, but the story line was strong and interesting and creative, and actually seemed pretty real. The whole show flowed really well. There were a lot of songs which made it move seamlessly, the harmonies and arrangements were really cool, and the orchestration, which consisted of piano, guitar, violin, and drums, was great. Like I said, it's pretty alternative, so some of it was kind of rock-ish, but not obnoxious at all. The acting was great, I was totally drawn in, and it had a pretty good resolution at the end... pretty realistic I would say. I really, really liked the whole thing, and was pretty pleasantly surprised about that. I would definitely see it again, and would definitely recommend it.

On a side note... this was one of the coldest days that I have experienced in NY. It was probably because we were out walking around so much, and we had the kids with us for awhile, so we really noticed it. I felt so bad, they were so miserable. They never complain about the cold, so you know when they do, it is pretty bad. The wind was what really did it. It said it was 27 degrees, but with the wind, it felt more like 16 or something. Needless to say, I felt like a terrible mother for having them out in such frigid weather.