arts & entertainment
Composer Tom Kitt is
a two-time Tony Award
winner for his work on
Next to Normal (Best
Original Score with
Brian Yorkey and Best
Orchestrations with
Michael Starobin).
Musical
Tackles
Mental
Illness
Next to Normal composer
Tom Kitt's award-winning
rock opera comes to Meado
Brook next month.
I
Suzanne Chessler
Contributing Writer
E
verything Else a song in the rock
opera Next to Normal, especially
expresses the feelings of its com-
poser, Tom Kitt.
The song, written with the show's lyricist-
librettist Brian Yorkey, is among more than
30 original numbers to be heard in the sung-
through musical Feb.13-March 10, when the
award-winning production will be staged at
Meadow Brook Theatre.
Next to Normal, recognized with a Pulitzer
Prize and three Tony Awards, tells the story
of the Goodmans, a suburban, dysfunctional
family of four confronting mental illness.
"'Everything Else' happens at the begin-
ning of the show, when Natalie, the daughter,
is at the piano:' explains Kitt, 38, in a recent
phone conversation from his New York
home.
"She sings about how everything makes
sense when she's at the piano. Everything
else goes away, and she gets to have her own
world right there. Whatever she's dealing
with [in reality] is not in her realm at that
point.
"That means a lot to me because I feel like
that when I'm at the piano. I'm at a very spe-
cial place emotionally. I feel grateful to my
parents for arranging piano lessons for me
and making me stick with them.
"Sometimes, I actually think of being in
practice rooms at Interlochen [in Northern
.
Michigan], where I spent a summer and
went off into my own thoughts as I was play-
ing alone
Jessica Naimy, in the role of Natalie, per-
forms the song at Meadow Brook under the
direction of Travis Walter. Also in the cast
are Stephanie Wahl as Diana, a mother suf-
fering with bipolar disorder and depression;
George Andrew Wolff as her husband, Dan;
Ryan Naimy as their son, Gabe; Jason Cabral
as Natalie's friend, Henry; and Eric Gutman
in a dual role as psychiatrists Dr. Fine/Dr.
Madden.
Gutman, who has toured with Jersey Boys
and regularly appears in local theater, recalls
seeing Next to Normal in New York
"This is one of the best musicals I've ever
experienced:' says Gutman, who appears in
many of the musical numbers. "It's beautiful
and heart-wrenching at the same time. It's
also brilliant:'
Kitt, who did the orchestrations for
American Idiot, also is the composer
for High Fidelity on Broadway, From Up
Here at Manhattan Theatre Club and The
Retributionists at Playwrights Horizons.
"Next to Normal still resonates as a mes-
sage that I'm proud of getting out into the
world:' Kitt says. "The writing feels like it
comes from my heart and soul.
"Like most people, I'm no stranger to
mental illness, but there's nothing in the play
that's autobiographical. There have been
people in my life I've seen struggle with
[emotional problems]; sometimes, it's a small
thing, and sometimes, it's a greater thing.
"Based on what I have seen, I was able to
channel that and import it into the writing:'
The play began as an assignment at the
BMI Musical Theatre Workshop attended by
Kitt and Yorkey after they graduated from
Columbia University. They came up with the
idea of a woman seeking relief from severe
depression.
Asked to write a 10-minute musical,
they built their piece around what Yorkey
had watched about shock therapy on news
reports. Also critical was a statistic; while 70
percent of patients receiving shock therapy
are women, 90 percent of the doctors who
prescribe it are men.
At the time, we didn't think that our short
play was going to become a full-length musi-
cal; Kitt says. "We were looking for some-
thing that felt a little daring and edgy.
"The story caught on from the very first
time we presented it. People had a real
response to it.
"Even though we were looking around for
other projects, we just kept coming back to
the subject matter. We wrote songs until we
had enough for a long and all-over-the-place
show:"
Kitt, who majored in economics, didn't
know he wanted a musical-theater career
until college.
"When I wrote shows with Brian at
Columbia, I thought about the power of
musical theater," he says. "I got taken with
the art form and being able to tell a story
with music, write for people other than
myself, watch them interpret a song and
move them:'
Kitt finds that inspiration for new music
can strike him anywhere, walking down the
street or sitting at a piano. He quickly jots
down or records those ideas.
His current creative attention is being
given to a new musical with the Next to
Normal team and composing responsibilities
for two plays, Madrid with Edie Falco and
the revival of Orphans with Alec Baldwin.
Kitt will do his own performing March
1 when he appears with Yorkey in the
American Songbook series at Lincoln Center
in New York Occasionally, he goes on stage
with the Tom Kitt Band, which includes
a former 1990 Interlochen fellow camper,
drummer Damien Bassman, who also was a
Next to Normal musician.
Kitt, married and the father of three, is
a member of the Village Temple in New
York City and has collaborated with Abigail
Pogrebin on songs with Jewish themes.
"Taking Your Place" marks the bar/bat mitz-
vah rite of passage.
"I'm always fascinated with Jewish ath-
letes, and it seems that more are becom-
ing renowned," says the composer, who
relaxes by watching sports events and ESPN's
SportsCenter.
"My father, Howard Kitt, is a former
professional baseball player. He grew up on
Long Island and was signed by the New York
Yankees. He decided to retire at a young
age, and I spent a few summers interning
at his firm, National Economic Research
Associates7
Rita Pietropinto-Kitt, an actress and
teacher at Marymount School in New York,
has never appeared in one of her husband's
plays, but she has served as an adviser. So
has her father, Dr. Anthony Pietropinto, a
psychiatrist.
"Rita helped with the early presentations
of Next to Normal, when it was called Feeling
Electric:' Kitt recalls. "She was the narrator. I
always get her opinions because she's theatri-
cal and an artist, and that's very special.
"My father-in-law was a wonderful
resource and good fact checker for Next
to Normal. He looked over the draft and
advised us, making sure the medical exper-
tise made sense.
"He led us to using hypnosis in the musi-
cal, suggesting it would be a good theatrical
device to show Diana's progress and also
what's holding her back
"We're telling a story with fantastical ele-
ments, but we wanted to get the medical part
right. We're dealing with something that's so
personal and affects so many people:'
❑
Next to Normal runs Feb.13-March
10 at Meadow Brook Theatre on
the campus of Oakland University
in Rochester. Evening and mati-
nee performances are scheduled
Wednesdays-Sundays. $25-$40. For
show times and tickets, go to (248)
377-3300 or www.mbtheatre.com .
January 31 • 2013
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