I never thought I could direct a musical. Watch a musical as an engaged audience member? Sure! Sing along off-key to my classic musical playlist? No problem! But never actually direct one myself. It was a quiet dream I had tucked away in the deep recesses of my mind, and it remained there until the fall of my sophomore year. That was the semester that I spent simultaneously directing one play, stage managing another, and acting in a third, all through Second Stage, the student-run theater group. During a quiet moment at a rehearsal, a good friend and I found a secluded corner of the ’92 Theater and shared in the most personal way theatre kids know how: we talked dream shows. We both mentioned the musical “Next to Normal,” and of course my instinct was to brush it away, thinking, “Oh, but I could never…”
“Next to Normal” is a contemporary rock musical telling the story of a suburban mother with bipolar disorder and how it affects her family. Not only does it have an intricate score and dauntingly heavy subject matter, but I knew the production would require a great deal of time and attention to fulfill its large scale. I was sure that directing any musical was still just an unattainable fantasy.
But once that “Next to Normal” seed was planted, I couldn’t stop it from growing. I couldn’t stop thinking about how important the show was, the connection I felt to the story, or the creative ideas I had for bringing it to life at Wesleyan. I also thought about how I was able to handle working on three plays at once, so how much harder could it be to work on one musical? After a few days of mulling it over, I realized that my passion for the show outweighed any concerns over time commitments. With a decidedly “why the fuck not?” attitude, I began work to direct “Next to Normal” in the spring of my sophomore year.
As much as Second Stage offers such a free and fertile creative environment for fostering the most why-the-fuck-not-based ideas of Wesleyan’s ambitious artists, the real world is unfortunately not quite as welcoming. In the spring, the joy of having assembled a talented cast and crew for “Next to Normal” was short-lived. The night after our first rehearsal, I learned that we had not received the rights to put it on, and the show would not go up. I was devastated.
If there’s anything that a musical about surviving the emotional turmoil of mental illness will teach you, it’s that you can’t give up. “Next to Normal” wasn’t happening, but that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t be able to direct during that semester. I regrouped and refocused. I directed the David Ives collection of short plays “All in the Timing,” which ended up being one of the most fun shows I’ve ever worked on. And all the while, I took advantage of the extra time to even more intricately plan a future production of “Next to Normal.”
After “All in the Timing,” with bated breath and crossed fingers, I once again applied to direct “Next to Normal,” this time in the fall of my junior year. Second Stage approved the application, and we ended up with an even better date and venue for the show than we had the first time. That and the amazing experience I had working on the show that fall reaffirmed my belief that the way life plays out is “all in the timing” (pun intended), or at the very least, that things happen the way they are meant to happen.
“Next to Normal” consumed much of that semester. I spent afternoons examining characters with actors and WesWings brunches sketching sets with designers. We stayed up late into the night putting together light plots, perfecting choreography, and fine-tuning songs. I pushed myself in ways I never had before as I learned what it meant to truly commit myself to a project that sparks passion. And I could not be more proud of the end result: a beautifully realized show, thanks to the hard work of an extremely talented team.
In the end, directing a musical was just as hard as I thought it would be. But it was even more gratifying than I ever could have even imagined. Where else but at a place like Wesleyan could I say “why the fuck not?” to directing my dream show and be surrounded by the talent and resources to actually have it come to fruition? The process was by no means perfect; we struggled with exhaustion, creative blocks, rehearsals starting late, budgetary limits, and countless other issues. But we powered through. As I watched the final performance of the show, I thought back to the ideas I had when I had discussed the show with my friend in that same exact space over a year earlier. Here those ideas were, perfectly embodied in front of me, and I knew all that time had been worth it.