next to normal back in NYC with a black Diana

[binau]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 4:32pm

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

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

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

[musicalsFan]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 4:45pm

I am not familiar with Nicole Powell, but I am definitely interested in seeing this.

[ClydeBarrow]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 6:29pm

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.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 6:36pm

I think the point is probably that the theatre wanted to do next to Normal.

I see non-Broadway productions use pull quotes like that all the time. I think it's generally understood those are quotes about the original production.

Updated On: 10/19/12 at 06:36 PM

[ClydeBarrow]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 6:41pm

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.

[latitudex1]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 6:43pm

“I have to ask what the point of this is.”

They liked her audition? It's a color-blind cast, so I don't think trying to make some giant statement.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 6:45pm

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

[ClydeBarrow]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 6:47pm

"And next season, the same company is doing Next to Normal featuring a black cast. That's just what the doctor ordered."
Musto's Article

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 6:50pm

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.

[Horton]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 11:23pm

I would love to see a next to normal starring Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis....

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 11:45pm

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

[darquegk]

Posted: 10/20/12 at 11:42am

Maybe successful upper-upper-middle-class black people like the n2n family, or the Cosbys, or the Proud Family- but you'll never see Precious (based on the character from the novel PUSH by Sapphire) getting psychopharmacology.

Don't know if it's more of an economic divide, a cultural stigma, or a racist denial of easy service, but it's a thing.

[sally1112]

Posted: 10/20/12 at 1:27pm

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

[Playbilly]

Posted: 10/21/12 at 8:58pm

So Namo, before I get upset, we're you serious about wondering about a "dream America" wherein Black people could get quality health care, or was that satire?

(and it's arguable that Diana received "quality" care at all)

[darquegk]

Posted: 10/21/12 at 10:49pm

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.