Family matters: Niamh Rose (Natalie), left, Monica Frost (Diana), Matthew Warry (Gabe) and Dale Vaughan (Dan) in a scene from Next To Normal. Picture: Emma Darbyshire
YORK company Pick Me Up Theatre follows up Christmas hit Anything Goes with Next To Normal’s intimate exploration of family and illness, loss and grief at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York.
Running from March 25 to April 4, this winner of three 2009 Tony Awards and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize combines book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey with music by Tom Kitt in its musical account of how one suburban household copes with crisis and mental illness.
Andrew Isherwood directs Pick Me Up’s cast of Monica Frost, Dale Vaughan, Niamh Rose, Matthew Warry, Fergus Green and Ryan Richardson in the story of architect Dad, Mom rushing to pack lunches and pour cereal, and their bright, wise-cracking teenage daughter and son.
Outwardly, they appear to be a typical American family, and yet their lives are anything but normal, because the mother has been battling manic depression for 16 years.
“Next To Normal takes audiences into the minds and hearts of each character, presenting their family’s story of dealing with mental illness with love, sympathy and heart,” says Andrew, who is joined in the production team by musical director James Robert Ball and producer/designer Robert Readman.
“It’s a relatively new work that’s not been done in York before, chosen by Robert [company founder and artistic director Robert Readman], who had this great idea to segue The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time [April 2025], Everybody’s Talking About Jamie [July 2025] and now – after the festive hiatus for Anything Goes – Next To Normal as three musicals that tackle mental health.
Dale Vaughan, front, and Ryan Richardson in rehearsal for Pick Me Up Theatre’s Next To Normal. Picture: Emma Darbyshire
“‘Curious Incident’ was told through the mind of a child [who called himself a ‘mathematician with some behavioural difficulties’]; ‘Jamie’ was a coming-of-age story of a teenage drag queen facing bigotry; Next To Normal is told through the parents’ eyes and deals with mental illness and facing a crisis. All three have incredible family drama at their core, even family dysfunction.”
Monica Frost plays Diana, the mother with a bipolar condition. “Monica has a huge task, but for all of the cast it’s such an emotionally taxing show, where we’ve discussed at length dealing with the grief of loss, processing it, and how it might have exacerbated her bipolar condition,” says Andrew.
He is delighted by the contribution of Dale Vaughan too as husband Dan. “He’s been terrific from the moment he came into the audition, having seen him for the first time in Pick Me Up’s Fun Home last September, when I thought, ‘blimey, where have you been hiding?’!”
Diana is undergoing Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). “There’s a scene that depicts that, and because this show can be quite dark, we’re trying to find moments of light too, otherwise it could be ‘misery porn’,” says Andrew.
“Thought we don’t show it, there’s a heavy revelation of suicidal tendencies, and because the subject is very complex, we need to handle it with care. The story is told with references to the past, shown through flashbacks, to show how Diana hasn’t addressed the loss of her child before or dealt with her grief.”
Matthew Warry and Niamh Rose in the rehearsal room
In putting the show together in rehearsals, “the way I like to work and the way I’ve worked with musical director James Robert Ball was to give him the show for the first four weeks because the music is such a massive component,” says Andrew.
“So we’ve focused on that first, learning the music and the lyrics, before we started building in the lighting, the costumes, the props, the entries and the exits, getting the skeleton together for the songs, ” says Andrew.
Then he set about “moving the cast around the stage, getting them to move with my interpretation,” he adds. “It’s not choreography of sorts, but if you sit in a chair for too long, it can swallow you up, but by moving them around it helps to tell the story.”
Dialogue between songs is as important as the big numbers. “It’s what the actor James Willstrop calls ‘my detail work’,” says Andrew, who won the Best Direction prize in February’s York Theatre Community Awards for The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time.
Meanwhile, Readman’s set design and Adam Moore’s lighting enable a physical manifestation of Diana’s state of mind, such as stairs representing transition or the use of a box for the ECT treatment as a manifestation of the world closing in on her.
Analysing the title of Next To Normal, Andrew says: “What is our interpretation of ‘normal’ when you have a family trying to function with all the complexities of life? But you also want the audience to leave the theatre feeling uplifted, so if it’s not ‘normal’ , then this life is considered to be ‘next to normal’ for the family. That’s what works for them.”
Pick Me Up Theatre in Next To Normal, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, March 25 to April 4, 7.30pm except March 29 and 30; 2.30pm, March 28 & 29 and April 4. Box office: https://tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Pick Me Up Theatre’s poster artwork for Next To Normal