Students in the Keene State Theatre and Dance Department are beginning final preparations for their production of the musical “Next to Normal” by Brian Yorkey, which premieres next week.
Professor and Chair of the Theatre and Dance Department Kirstin O’Brien, who is directing the upcoming musical, described it as “a show that tackles how trauma, a traumatic event, can innately impact one person, but then in turn … it impacts [the people] around them.”
According to O’Brien, the show is about a mother who experiences a traumatic event and gets diagnosed with manic depression and bipolar disorder, which consequently has an impact on the character’s husband and daughter.
The show’s purpose is “bringing light to what mental health can be, what it can look like and humanizing the diagnosis,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien described the show’s topic as “hard material” and anticipated that it may have an impact on audience members. According to O’Brien, KSC Wellness Center staff will be present at every performance of the show in the event that an audience member needs to step out for support.
O’Brien said the heaviness of the subject matter was exactly what led her to choose this show.
“I, as a director, really thrive on choosing material of topics that may be ‘hush hush’ to talk about, that might be very vulnerable, scary conversations to have. I use theater to start that conversation, so that is 100 percent why I chose that show. Mental health will always be here, will never be going away,” O’Brien said.
“I really just encourage audiences to understand it might be a space of vulnerability, but we have a safe environment to feel all the feels that people might not have even been aware of wanting to feel,” O’Brien said. “Hopefully everyone will walk away feeling like they have ignited something in themselves that they are ready to have a conversation with or about.”
O’Brien said that one of the aspects of the show’s production that she is most excited about is the choreography by senior student Allyson Crisa.
Crisa, who is a dual major in psychology and dance, said that she has previously done choreography for the dance program’s choreography showcase, but this is her first time doing choreography for a theater production.
“I entered a world that I really know nothing about,” Crisa said. “The challenge for me has been, ‘What can I take that I know and I’ve learned throughout my four years here in choreography, and rely on that to carry me through this new space that I’m in?’”
Crisa said that she had been asked by O’Brien to create choreography for the “pivotal” scene that opens the show’s second act, which involves two characters having a powerful shared experience. According to Crisa, this is the first time that a production of “Next to Normal” has ever incorporated real dance choreography into the show.
“[O’Brien] respects my choices and she looks to me for advice, it feels very fulfilling to be like, ‘She trusts me,’ and she is trusting me with this huge section of her show,” Crisa said. “That’s been really special for me.”
Crisa also said that she was excited to get the chance to combine both of her interests in this process, “I want to be a counselor when I’m older … I think that looking at family dynamics and being a senior and wondering how I can take two things that I really love and putting these themes of psychology and everything I’ve learned into this idea of dance was great. This is everything that I’ve wanted in my four years here, is to have a project that brings both of them together.”
Junior Mackenzie Mann is another student who has worked on the show, serving as the production’s set designer and prop designer.
Speaking about the importance of her prop design work for the show, Mann said, “There’s a lot of really specific items that have a big role in the show … me and the director talk a lot, and I talk with the actors, just figuring out exactly what we want it to look like, how the actors can use it to their best ability.”
“There’s a few props that I’ve had to build from scratch because they need to do something really specific,” Mann said. “I also really want it to match what I have going on in my head. I want it to come to life.”
Mann said she enjoys doing prop design because of how it impacts the quality of the show.
“It has a lot to do with the realism of the show,” Mann said. “For the magnitude of the show specifically, it’s really necessary. It’s just a piece of the puzzle that it’s right.”
Senior Chloe Roy is the costume designer for “Next to Normal.” Roy said that her costuming process is unique in how hands-on with the actors and attentive to detail she is.
“I host one-on-one interviews with every single performer, just to talk about character, so that way I have an understanding of pivotal moments in the show and how they are interpreting them in their character, so that way minute details like watches, numbers on jerseys, things like that feel right to ground the character in that way,” Roy said.
According to Roy, one of the biggest costume-related challenges that she has faced with this show is the passage of time.
“Time is really weird in this show. You go through three seasons, so it starts at the beginning of the school year and ends in March, so there’s a lot of seasons. When that happens, you want to make sure that it’s very clear that it’s changing and that time is going by,” Roy said. “There are moments where two weeks are supposed to go by but no one’s ever left the stage, so how do you facilitate that time change visually? That’s been pretty challenging.”
Roy said the usage of color in costuming has been one of the most fun parts of working on this show for her.
“I love a good color story, so it’s been really fun to kind of figure out where all that’s going,” said Roy. “One character getting their color back, while another one is losing it, and those parallels. There’s a lot of people in day-to-day life, when you’re feeling really good about yourself you put a lot more color on than you would normally, and if you’re not feeling great, you wear a lot of muted colors and kind of lose yourself in that.”
All of the work these students have put into the show will be on display in “Next to Normal” in the Redfern’s Main Theater, from November 20-23.
Justin Dearborn can be contacted at
