BWW Interviews: Lisa Anne Bailey, Director of NEXT TO NORMAL, McLean Community Players

There is a buzz going on nearby in McLean. Forget new transportation woes or political shenanigans. The hubbub is over an award-winning musical which is in production at a local community center.

The prize-winning musical Next to Normal has opened to critical acclaim and solid box office at the Alden Theatre. Produced by the McLean Community Players, performances wrap up next weekend and the staff at the theater urge patrons to order their tickets now. Seating is limited and the kudos keep stacking up, including a five-star review from the DC Metro Theater Arts theatre blog and review site.

Musicals are bread and butter fare for theatres large and small including community organizations. Big cast, feel good shows fill the seasons of community theatres, and McLean Community Players is no exception. Legally Blonde: The Musical was a recent box office success for the theatre and Damn Yankees closes the 2012-2013 season.

But Next to Normal takes the subject of mental illness and couples it with a rock-edged score, focusing on just six characters and is not based on an existing novel, film or cartoon series. The original work of book and lyric writer Brian Yorkey and composer Tom Kitt drew considerable buzz during its development. Washington's Arena Stage and other venues saw Next to Normal before it landed on Broadway. It earned a Tony Award for original lyrics and score, and was celebrated by Rolling Stone as "the best musical of the season."

Yorkey and Kitt's work is only the seventh musical to earn the coveted Pulitzer Prize for drama (2010), joining such titles as Sondheim and Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George (1985), A Chorus Line (1976), and Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific (1950).

Next to Normal tells the story of a wife and mother struggling with bipolar disorder. Diana Goodman (Nicky McDonnell) struggles with her condition and the effect that it has on her family. Husband Dan (Brent Stone) works to keep the family together while their teenage children - played by Catharine Callahan and Nick DuPre - cope in their own ways.

The director of Next to Normal is Lisa Anne Bailey. An experienced performer (MCP's The Drowsy Chaperone, in the title role), Bailey has also been active in the Northern Virginia theatre community as a director and choreographer. Her work has been seen at theatres such as the Arlington Players, Reston Community Players, and Elden Street Players.

Broadway World-DC's Jeffrey Walker sat down with Lisa Anne to look more closely at the show.

Jeffrey Walker: Were you familiar with Next to Normal before taking on the show as a director?

LISA ANNE BAILEY: Yes, I had seen it when it was in production at Arena Stage, before it went to Broadway.

JW: What was your reaction to the show as an audience member at Arena Stage?

LB: That it was a very brave new musical and it was certainly something that I was interested in.

JW: How is it brave?

LB: Brave, first of all, in its subject matter. The fact that we're dealing with a bi-polar issue, which is not often put on the stage. And the fact that it's a 99 percent sung-through rock musical.

It's a highly emotion-packed story. As far as I'm concerned, the basic story is a love story - about family and challenge.

JW: When MCP offered you the chance to direct the show, how did you respond?

LB: I jumped on it. I was very excited by the challenge of it. My original thinking when I first saw it at Arena Stage was that when it became available to other theatres I would want to audition for it. But when they brought it to me to direct, I was intrigued by that challenge even more.

JW: Among your other directing experiences, how does this compare and how has it been different?

LB: This is the first rock opera-type show I've ever directed - that was kind of scary [chuckling]. And the fact that it's almost entirely sung-through, your dialogue and your singing are one. The singing has to become almost conversational. I couldn't block anything on the stage until the cast knew the music, since the music is their dialogue. We spent the first six weeks just learning music.

JW: What has been the biggest challenge?

LB: I think the biggest challenge was finding the right six people who could attack it, as it was a rock musical, who would do it justice. And also get close enough to each other and feel comfortable enough with each other to give in to the emotional impact of the story.

JW: Had you worked with anyone in the cast prior to this production?

LB: Brent Stone, who plays Dan, and I were in Little Women at McLean Community Players a few years back, and I have directed him at Arlington Players. Quinn McCord, who plays the dual roles of the doctors, and I were in The Drowsy Chaperone at MCP.

Everybody else is new to me - Nicky McDonnell, Catharine Callahan, and Brent's son Alex Stone. And one person is completely new to community theatre. Nick DuPre, who plays the son; this is his first time in community theatre. I am delighted for him, and he has had such a great chance to work with an amazing group of actors. He has soaked up so much and come so far.

JW: Nicky McDonnell plays Diana, which is such a pivotal role as the mother with bipolar disorder.

LB: Nicky is phenomenal. I have not had the opportunity to work with an actress of this caliber before and I am beyond delighted. The minute I saw her at auditions, there was no way Diana was going to go to anybody else. She just had all the right emotions and the willingness to embrace all the levels of this production, and she does. She is quite the powerhouse and we're glad to have her as the lead. The rest of the cast is able to feed off of her and make their own impact, as well.

JW: What was the biggest surprise of working on Next to Normal?

LB: The cast itself has been the biggest surprise and delight because they really gave in completely from the very beginning to the organic nature of the show. We spent a lot of time doing table talk, which is not always a common practice in most musicals. We had to do a little homework on this. We had to find out more about bipolar disorder; we had to make decisions as a group on how we were going to approach the individual characters. I based of a lot of my staging of the show on these individual people because they really embraced the whole experience. We rarely got through a rehearsal without crying. It's just a little bit more intimate - it reminds me more of a non-musical in that it's story-based. It is very grounded in how these characters are feeling.

JW: Talk about your collaborators.

LB: Of course the musical director was key to everything. David Rohde is our musical director. He has an amazing reputation and I was delighted to have him as part of the team. He understood how different this was and in teaching the music, worked hard to help the performers keep it conversational. He has been absolutely the ideal person to be involved in this.

The set and sound designers, because it's a rock opera, had had to be very, very conscious of sound - making sure the band doesn't overpower the singers. We needed to make sure that every word is understood. We even changed the approach to the microphones for this show. We're using the ones that are very close to the mouth because I don't want one word to be missed.

Stan Harris, the sound designer, has been amazing. And the set designer, Michael Schlabach, helped us to make the nearly bare stage work, with the suggestion of a house, but just with levels and bare essentials. We couldn't have too many changes, since the show moves so fast, there is no time.

JW: What would you say to someone coming to Next to Normal who has never seen the show before?

LB: Come see a very real story about family and love. It is a story that has obstacles, change and growth. It shows how families deal with extreme situations, like cancer or mental illness or any obstacle - and how each individual family member deals with it and adjusts, and survives.

JW: Any last words on Next to Normal?

LB: Contrary to popular belief, it is not a story about bipolar disorder that's merely the cause of the actual story. The story is about family and love. Next to Normal is 100 percent, from start to finish, about these six people. It is brave on every front.

TOP PHOTO: Dan (Brent Stone) and Diana (Nicky McDonnell) talk as their son Gabe (Nick DuPre) observes in MCP's NEXT TO NORMAL, continuing through Feb. 16, 2013 at the Alden Theatre.

SECOND PHOTO: Mother and daughter: (left) Catharine Callahan as Natalie, and Nicky McDonnell as Diana in NEXT TO NORMAL.

PHOTO CREDIT: Traci Brooks

A Special Talkback: Immediately after the February 15th performance, McLean Community Players will host an informal talk-back. The cast and director will be present to talk to audiences members. They will be joined by Colleen Blanchfield, M.D., a local neuropsychiatrist, and Jeri Hesson, an educator from National Alliance on Mental Illness-NOVA.

NEXT TO NORMAL

Book & lyrics by Brian Yorkey Music by Tom Kitt. Produced by McLean Community Players. Directed by Lisa Anne Bailey. Musical director: David Rohde. CAST: (alphabetically) Catherine Callahan, Nick DuPre, Quinn McCord, Nicky McDonnell, Alex Stone, Brent Stone

Alden Theatre: 1234 Ingleside Ave, McLean, VA 22101 (Click for map)

Through Feb 16, 2013 - Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm

For tickets click here. Or call OvationTix online at 866-811-4111.

Box Office - 703.790.9223. Hours are: Wed & Thur: 5-9 pm Fri & Sat: noon-9 pm

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