Next to Normal—a searingly brilliant rock opera examining the lives of a family whose mother is struggling with bipolar depression—opened on Broadway 10 years ago today

The show beautifully captures the swings between the ridiculous highs and the soul-crushing lows the disease brings to us living in it and to the selfless teams of people who care for us.

I’m fortunate enough to have seen the original production, very soon after I’d been diagnosed as bipolar and had found myself caught in a rather terrifying struggle to wrap my confused, exhausted brain around the fact that mental illness was no longer a mysterious entity in other people’s lives; it was MY LIFE, and I had no idea how to manage it or what potential and very real horrors to expect from it.

The musical is rough to experience from any perspective, but seeing it for the first time tore me apart ... and then put me back together with its closing anthem, “Light,” which features an almost casually placed lyric that is at once devastating and hopeful and never fails to sneak up on me and emotionally gut me even though I know it’s coming: “The price of love is loss / but still we pay / we love anyway.”

Back when I saw the show on Broadway, selfies were new and weird and shameful—and for you young folks, it was the Middle Ages when our smart phones had single cameras that didn’t let us see on our screens what our selfies would look like so we just had to hold our phones in the air and hope for the best—so I took this selfie as one-shot quickly and discreetly as I could to ensure an entire city of complete strangers wouldn’t judge me. It turned out rather well, although I cut off the last letter of the sign. Which means as far as any of you know, I actually just saw a knockoff production called Next to Norma:

Coe College in Cedar Rapids opened a production of Next to Normal last weekend that runs through this weekend. I was asked to have a QA with the cast a few weeks ago to help them create hopefully more informed characters, and I’m honored to be giving talkbacks with the audiences after every performance this coming weekend—starting this Thursday, April 18, which is my birthday, and I can’t think of a better way to keep my mind off the number fifty (ahem) one. I’d add a link here, but I can’t get one to load on my phone that I can copy. So google it and come see the show if you can. The show will change you.

Day after day,
We'll find the will to find our way.
Knowing that the darkest skies
Will someday see the sun.
When our long night is done,
There will be light.