Next to Normal

Event Date: May 17 · 8 - 10pm CDT

Next to Normal, with book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey and music by Tom Kitt, explores how one suburban household copes with crisis and mental illness. Winner of three 2009 Tony Awards, including Best Musical Score and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize, Next to Normal was also chosen as "one of the year's ten best shows" by critics around the country, including The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone and The New York Times.

Diana (Nina Jayashankar), Dan (Adrian Thornburg), Natalie (Asha Grace), and Gabe (Arjun Shah) all seem like one big happy bi-racial Hindu-Punjabi South Asian family living in the Chicago Suburbs. Dan works an office job. Diana is a stay at home mother. Gabe is the star athlete at his school. Natalie is a straight-A student and has a wonderful boyfriend, Henry (Joey Faggion). However, their world is anything but normal. Diana has been battling bipolar disorder for the past 16 years. Dan has spent these 16 years trying to take care of his wife, along with the help of–while simultaneously neglecting–their kids, Natalie and Gabe. Through faith, religion, medication, trips to the doctor (Michael J. Santos), and family support, Next to Normal explores how one family struggles with finding light in the darkness.

About Pop Up! Productions: Pop Up! Productions is a new, Chicago-based theater production company aimed at unifying individuals from all walks of life by providing them with an opportunity to perform on the world’s brightest stages. Pop Up! Productions aims to develop highly mobile networks of support and resource acquisition, in order to produce high quality, full length productions whenever and wherever opportunity arises.

About The South Asia Institute: Founded in 2015 as an Illinois 501 (C)(3) non-profit public corporation, South Asia Institute (SAI) opened in 2019. We are the only independent South Asian American arts and cultural center in Chicago dedicated solely to preserving, promoting, and presenting South Asian arts while embracing the cultural similarities and differences among the broader communities of Chicago and the rest of the American public.

This production of NEXT TO NORMAL was licensed by Music Theatre International.

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