‘Next to Normal’ Original Broadway Cast Reunites Online
The original Broadway cast of Next to Normal reunites on Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley’s Stars in the House.
Featuring Alice Ripley, J. Robert Spencer, Adam Chanler-Berat, Jennifer Damiano, Aaron Tveit and Louis Hobson, together with composer Tom Kitt, the online reunion streamed live on the Stars in the House YouTube channel at September 16, 8am Philippine time.
During the stream, audiences sent in donations for The Actors Fund and shared how the show impacted their lives. The cast also talked about how they got involved with the show and how they kept things light backstage. They also shared tribute messages to Marin Mazzie, who replaced Ripley in playing the role of Diana. She passed away in 2018.
Ripley and Tveit also sang the songs I Miss the Mountains and There’s a World respectively.
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. The musical was nominated for 11 Tony Awards in 2009 and won 3, including Best Original Score, Best Orchestration, and Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical for Alice Ripley. It also won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the eighth musical in history to receive the honor.
Stars in the House is a daily live-streamed series hosted by SiriusXM’s Seth Rudetsky and his husband, producer James Wesley, in an effort to raise money for The Actors Fund and its services. With musical performances by stars remotely from their homes and conversations with Seth and James between each tune, viewers can donate to the charity and interact with the guests in real time.
The series, which launched in March 16, 2020 with Kelli O’Hara, raised over $50,000 in the first four days of airing. Guests have included Andrew Lloyd Webber, Kristin Chenoweth, Audra McDonald, Ramin Karimloo, Sierra Boggess, Laura Benanti, as well as cast reunions from Rent, The Prom, Dear Evan Hansen, among many, many others in its more than 200 episodes so far. Stars in the House plans to stream daily until Broadway re-opens.
You can watch the reunion below.
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