Next to Normal

by Brian Yorkey

  DIANA:So anyway, I’m leaving.

  I thought you’d like to know.

  You’re faithful, come what may,

  But clearly I can’t stay,

  We’d both go mad that way—

  So here I go.

  And anyway, I’m leaving—

  I guess that you can see.

  I’ll try this on my own.

  A life I’ve never known.

  I’ll face the dread alone . . .

  But I’ll be free.

  With you always beside me

  To catch me when I fall,

  I’d never get to know the feel of solid ground at all.

  With you always believing

  That we could still come through,

  It makes me feel the fool to know that it’s not true.

  What doctors call dysfunction,

  We tried to call romance.

  And true, it’s quite a trick to tell

  The dancers from the dance—

  But rather than let chance take me

  I’ll take a chance . . .

  (Gabe enters, listening.)

  I’ll take a chance on leaving.

  It’s that, or stay and die.

  I loved you once, and though

  You love me still, I know

  It’s time for me to fly . . .

  (She addresses both Dan and Gabe:)

  I loved you once, and though

  I love you still, I know

  It’s time for me to go . . .

  And so good-bye.

  (She nods at Gabe, and goes.

  Music changes.

  Dan sits, unmoving, as Gabe approaches.)

  i am the one (reprise)

  (To himself, after his wife:)

  DAN:I am the one who loved you.

  I am the one who stayed.

  I am the one, and you walked away.

  I am the one who waited . . .

  And now you act like you just don’t give a damn—

  Like you never knew who I am.

  (Gabe moves slowly closer to Dan.)

  GABE:DAN:

  I am the one who knows you. I am . . .

  I am the one you fear. I am . . .

  I am the one who’s always been here. I’ve always been here.

  I am the one who’ll hear you. I am . . .

  I know you told her that I am . . .

  I’m not worth a damn,

  GABE:But I know you know who I am.

  DAN: No.

  GABE:I know you know who I am.

  DAN: Can’t you just leave me alone?

  GABE:I know you know who I am.

  DAN: Why didn’t you go with her?

  GABE:’Cause I’m holding on . . .

  DAN:Let me go.

  GABE:And I won’t let go . . .

  DAN:Let me go.

  GABE:Yeah, I want you to know

  DAN:You don’t know . . .

  DAN AND GABE:I am the one who held you.

  I am the one who cried.

  I am the one who watched while you died.

  Yeah, yeah, yeah . . .

  I am the one who loved you.

  I tried pretending that I don’t give a damn

  GABE:But you’ve always known who I am.

  DAN: Gabe. Gabriel.

  GABE: Hi, Dad.

  (Music ends.

  Natalie arrives home.

  Gabe disappears.)

  NATALIE: Dad? What the hell? Why are the lights off? Where’s Mom?

  DAN: She’s, uh, she’s . . .

  NATALIE: Gone.

  DAN: Yes.

  NATALIE: Huh. So it’s just me and you. For now.

  DAN: Yes.

  NATALIE: Okay.

  (Music.)

  light

  We need some light.

  First of all, we need some light.

  You can’t sit here in the dark,

  And all alone—

  It’s a sorry sight.

  It’s just you and me.

  We’ll live. You’ll see.

  (Natalie turns on a light.)

  DAN:Night after night

  We’d sit and wait for the morning light.

  But we’ve waited far too long

  For all that’s wrong

  To be made right.

  (Elsewhere, Diana appears.)

  DIANA:Day after day . . .

  Wishing all our cares away . . .

  Trying to fight the things we feel . . .

  But some hurts never heal.

  Some ghosts are never gone,

  But we go on.

  We still go on.

  And you find some way to survive.

  And you find out you don’t have to be happy at all

  To be happy you’re alive.

  (Diana goes.

  Henry enters, on a different day. Calls off:)

  HENRY: Do you know where she went? Have you heard from her?

  NATALIE: Oh, I’ve heard from her. She’s staying with my grandparents.

  HENRY: Do they actually exist?

  (Natalie has entered, not amused.)

  NATALIE: Yes.

  HENRY: So—that’s good, right?

  NATALIE: Well, going home has never been a solution to any of my problems.

  HENRY: That’s what you have me for.

  NATALIE: Seriously? You’re like number three on my list of issues.

  HENRY: You keep a list?

  NATALIE: But don’t worry, Henry. You’re my favorite problem.

  HENRY: That’s all I ask.

  NATALIE:Day after day,

  Give me clouds, and rain, and gray.

  Give me pain if that’s what’s real—

  (Elsewhere, Doctor Madden is with Dan.)

  NATALIE AND DOCTOR MADDEN:

  It’s the price we pay to feel.

  DOCTOR MADDEN:

  The price of love is loss,

  (Natalie turns to go . . .)

  But still we pay

  (. . . but Henry pulls her back, and they kiss.)

  We love anyway.

  DAN: I know you can’t tell me . . . if you’re still treating her. I just, I wonder if she’s okay.

  DOCTOR MADDEN: I think she’s working on it. And she’s aware of the risks.

  DAN: Do you think she’ll come home?

  DOCTOR MADDEN: It’s hard to know.

  DAN: Right.

  DOCTOR MADDEN: Dan. Would you like me to recommend someone . . . for you to talk to?

  DAN: Oh, no, I. Yes. I would. Thank you.

  (They sit and talk, as Gabe appears elsewhere.)

  GABE:And when the night has fin’ly gone,

  And when we see the new day dawn,

  We’ll wonder how we wandered for so long, so blind.

  (Dan and Doctor Madden stand. Doctor Madden writes on the back of a card, hands it to Dan . . .)

  The wasted world we thought we knew—

  The light will make it look brand-new.

  (. . . and Dan leaves the office and steps out into the sunshine.)

  (Elsewhere, Diana also steps into the sunshine.)

  ALL:Shine!

  Shine!

  Shine!

  Day after day . . .

  We’ll find the will to find our way,

  Knowing that the darkest skies

  Will some day see the sun—

  DAN:When our long night is done . . .

  DAN AND NATALIE:There will be light.

  ALL:There will be light . . .

  When we open up our lives,

  Sons and daughters, husbands, wives—

  And fight that fight . . .

  There will be light.

  There will be light.

  There will be light.

  There will be light!

  (Lights.)

  THE END

  Brian Yorkey (left) and Tom Kitt

  Tom Kitt (Composer) received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as two Tony awards for Best Score and Best Orchestrations (with Michael Starobin)
, for next to normal. His music for next to normal also received the 2009 Frederick Loewe Award for dramatic composition and an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Score. Tom is responsible for the music supervision, arrangements and orchestrations for Green Day’s American Idiot on Broadway and was also the string arranger on their most recent album 21st Century Breakdown. Tom is also the composer of High Fidelity (Broadway), The Winter’s Tale (The Public’s NYSF), From Up Here (Manhattan Theatre Club) and The Retributionists (Playwrights Horizons). As a musical director, conductor, arranger and orchestrator for Broadway, Off-Broadway and beyond, his credits include 13, Debbie Does Dallas, Everyday Rapture, Hair, Laugh Whore and Urban Cowboy. He is the proud leader of the Tom Kitt Band (www.tomkittband.com), whose songs have been featured in film and TV.

  Brian Yorkey (Librettist/Lyricist) received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as the Tony Award for Best Score, for next to normal. Brian was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for next to normal, and his work on the show earned him the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Score. Theater credits include Making Tracks, which has played Off-Broadway and regionally, the musical adaptation of Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet, and the country musical Play It by Heart. Film and TV projects in development include the features: Love Undercover (Pandemonium Films and Overture Films), Fashion Show (Parkes/MacDonald and Paramount) and Chase (Anonymous Content and Rosenzweig Films). He has directed Off-Broadway and regionally, and for seven years was associate artistic director at Village Theatre in Washington state, one of the nation’s leading producers of new musicals. He is a graduate of Columbia University, where he was artistic director of the Varsity Show; an alum of the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop; and a proud member of The Dramatists Guild and the Writers Guild of America.

  next to normal book and lyrics are copyright © 2010 by Brian Yorkey next to normal music is copyright © 2010 by Tom Kitt

  The Foreword is copyright © 2010 by Anthony Rapp

  next to normal is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc.,

  520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018–4156

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty. All rights including, but not limited to, professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of readings and all uses of this book by educational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the author’s representative: John Buzzetti, William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, 1325 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10019, 212-903-1166.

  This publication is made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.

  TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kitt, Tom.

  [Next to normal. Libretto]

  Next to normal / music, Tom Kitt ; book and lyrics, Brian Yorkey. p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-559-36662-5

  1. Musicals—Librettos. I. Yorkey, Brian. II. Title.

  ML50.K624N4 2010

  782.1’40268—dc22 2010021764

  Text design and composition by Lisa Govan