next to normal back in NYC with a black Diana

http://musicallyhuman.org/next-to-normal/

Interesting. I'd like to see it. Excuse the confronting subject.

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Updated On: 10/19/12 at 04:32 PM

I have to ask what the point of this is.

Also it seems odd to me that they're using all those quotes attributed to the Broadway production. Seems a little misleading.

I saw Night of the Living Dead from the same company so I have mixed feelings about seeing one of my favorite musicals there.

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I saw referring to the point of a black Diana. I'm not totally against it but it seemed like this was originally billed as a black N2N so I'm curious as to why there is a need for such. And it seems interesting that they strayed from the original idea and only Diana is black.

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I hadn't heard of this before, so I don't know how it was billed beforehand.

Perhaps they couldn't find enough black actors and decided not to punish the actress they wanted for Diana. Or perhaps Musto got his facts wrong.

It takes place in some sort of dream America where black people have access to quality mental health care.

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So no one is going to mention how cute the husband and doctor are?

I think it was sort of a dual comment on both the fact that many predominantly black areas are poor and not likely to have quality mental care, as well as perhaps a more perceptive "conversation starting" topic about the stigma of mental health issues in the black community being rather different than in mainstream white America- particularly in the upper-middle-class white Jewish socioeconomic group that has long made up a hefty chunk of the backbone of the theatre scene.