Featuring an electrifying contemporary score of more than 30 songs, this groundbreaking, Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical is an emotional powerhouse. Captivating and ultimately hopeful, Next to Normal aims right for the heart with its story of a suburban family coming to terms with its past and bravely facing its future. The New York Times raves “It is much more than a feel-good musical; it is a feel-everything musical.”

Music by Tom Kitt
Book and Lyrics by Brian Yorkey
Directed by Scott Schwartz

A co-production with the Tony Award-winning Alliance Theatre, Atlanta.

Produced with Support From:

Performance Calendar

Plan your visit

Prologue: a pre-show lecture is offered free of charge one hour prior to every performance.

Dining & Entertainment

Click here to check out the Geva Café or look below for more options in the area!

Rick's Prime Rib
898 Buffalo Rd.
Rochester, NY 14624
(585) 235-2900

The Pomodoro Grill
1290 University Ave.
Rochester, NY 14607
(585) 271-5000

Edibles
704 University Ave.
Rochester, NY
(585) 271-4910

Palladio Vu Restaurant
125 E. Main St.
Rochester, NY 14604
(585) 423-6767

Gusto
277 Alexander St.
Rochester, NY 14607
(585) 232-7810

Tavern58 at Gibbs
58 University Ave.
Rochester, NY 14605
(585) 546-5800

Eros Restaurant & Bar
37 Charlotte St.
Rochester, NY 14607
(585) 546-2230

JORDAN CRAIG (Henry) makes his Geva Theatre Center debut in Next to Normal. He has been living and acting in Atlanta for a little over a year now and is excited beyond belief to be cast in this production of Next to Normal! A recent graduate of Sewanee: The University of the South, Mr. Craig was hired by Georgia Shakespeare (The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, The Jungle Book) and is a regular actor there. He has appeared in Spring Awakening (Melchior) and Xanadu (Sonny) at Actor’s Express; The Wizard of Oz (Tin Man) at the Alliance Theater; and Legally Blonde (Kyle/Dewey/Grandmaster Chad) at the Atlanta Lyric Theatre. Special thanks to Mom, Dad, Amanda, Taylor, Keaton, Jenny, Greg, and Mary for all the love, support and friendship. Jordan would like to dedicate his performance in Next to Normal to his Uncle Steve. The example you have set for me will serve as a guiding star giving me purpose and direction. Thank you for being a source of light in my life.

BOB GAYNOR (Dan) makes his Geva Theatre Center debut in Next to Normal. A Southern California native, Mr. Gaynor has lived in New York for the last thirteen years. Most recently he appeared in last season’s Leap of Faith and Catch Me If You Can. Other Broadway credits include Sweet Charity, Boy George’s Taboo (Leigh Bowery/Perf), and Elton John’s Aida (Redames). At NY City Center he has appeared in Bye, Bye, Birdie (Conrad); Applause and Stairway to Paradise. Regional credits include First Wives Club, Smokey Joe’s Café (Michael), and A Chorus Line (Zach). TV and film credits include “Blue Bloods,” “Law and Order,” “One Life to Live,” “As the World Turns,” Across the Universe, The Mask. Love to Dwayne and the pups!

CATHERINE PORTER (Diana) makes her Geva Theatre Center debut. Credits include Next to Normal on Broadway (stood by/performed the role of Diana), Betty Shaefer in Sunset Boulevard (London’s West End and opposite Hugh Jackman in the original Australian production), John and Jen, and Cougar the Musical (Off-Broadway), to name a few. She sang opposite Michael Crawford in the international tour of The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber and was a featured singer in the Brian May Band, supporting Guns-N-Roses on their world tour. Ms. Porter is a singer-songwriter with two albums - Something Good and Gems for Ruby (available at the Symphony Store and iTunes). catherineporter.com

LYNDSAY RICKETSON (Natalie) makes her Geva Theatre Center debut. Ms. Ricketson appears regularly onstage in Atlanta where she has appeared in the Alliance Theater’s productions of The Wizard of Oz, Sweeney Todd (Johanna Barker) and Titanic: The Musical (Kate Murphey). Film credits include Sunday Morning Rapture, Next of Kin, Diamonds Aren’t Forever, Der Greis. Ms. Ricketson received her B.A. in Musical Theater from Berry College. Special thanks to my family for their ceaseless support and my friends for putting up with my outlandish schedule! Discover your noblest dreams within the cathedral of your heart.

CARY TEDDER (Gabe) makes his Geva Theatre Center debut in Next to Normal. Broadway credits include The Times They Are A-Changin’ and Memphis. Mr. Tedder appeared in the national tour of West Side Story and regionally at North Shore Music Theatre, Pittsburgh CLO, Music Theatre of Wichita and the St. Louis MUNY. He is a native of Marietta, Georgia and received his B.F.A. in Musical Theatre from the University of Michigan. Many thanks and much love to Mom, Dad, Erin, Mary, and all the teachers who helped me along the road to success. Go Blue!

GOOGIE UTERHARDT (Dr. Fine/Dr. Madden) makes his Geva Theatre Center debut in Next to Normal. Mr. Uterhardt has appeared extensively onstage in Atlanta where credits include Clyde ‘n Bonnie: A Folktale at Aurora Theater; Love Jerry for Actor’s Express (Suzi Award winner, Best Supporting Actor in a Musical); Glimpses of the Moon and Suzi-nominated Forbidden Broadway at the George Ensemble Theatre; Rent and Little Shop of Horrors at Atlanta Lyric Theatre; Aldolpho in The Drowsy Chaperone and Burrs in The Wild Party for OnStage Atlanta; Bat Boy: the Musical at Dad’s Garage; Tuesdays With Morrie at ART Station and Tent Meeting for Theatrical Outfit. He also develops new works with Out of Han Theater.

TOM KITT (Composer) received the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as two Tony Awards for Best Score and Best Orchestrations for Next to Normal. His music for Next to Normal also received the 2009 Frederick Loewe Award for dramatic composition and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Score. Tom is also responsible for the music supervision, arrangements and orchestrations for Green Day’s American Idiot on Broadway, and provided additional arrangements for their Grammy Award-winning album 21st Century Breakdown and their upcoming trilogy, ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tré! Tom is also the composer of High Fidelity (Broadway); The Winter’s Tale and All’s Well That Ends Well (The Public’s NYSF); From up Here (MTC); and The Retributionists (Playwrights Horizons.) As a musical director, conductor, arranger and orchestrator, his credits include Pitch Perfect (Feature Film), 13, Debbie Does Dallas, Everyday Rapture, Hair, Laugh Whore, Pippin (Deaf West), and Urban Cowboy.

BRIAN YORKEY (Librettist/ Lyricist) received the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as the 2009 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 Best Score. Brian is currently at work on a new musical with Next to Normal composer Tom Kitt, director Michael Greif, and producer David Stone, slated for Broadway in the 2013-14 season, as well as a musical adaptation of The Visitor. Other theatre 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 projects in active development include Score! for Team Downey and Warner Bros., Time After Time for Summit/Lionsgate, Love Undercover for Pandemonium Films, and Chase for Anonymous Content and Resonzweig Films. Brian has directed off-Broadway and regionally and for seven years was associate director at Village Theatre in Washington State, one of the nation’s leading producers of new musicals. He’s a graduate of Columbia University, where he was artistic director of the Varsity Show, alum of the BMI/Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the WGA.

SCOTT SCHWARTZ (Director) returns to Geva Theatre Center where he directed the world premiere of ROOMS: A Rock Romance. Broadway credits include Golda’s Balcony and Jane Eyre (co-directed with John Caird). Off-Broadway credits include Bat Boy: The Musical; Tick, Tick...Boom!; Rooms: A Rock Romance; The Foreigner starring Matthew Broderick; Franz Kafka’s The Castle; Miss Julie and No Way to Treat a Lady. Mr. Schwartz also directed Golda’s Balcony in London, on tour in Los Angeles at the Wadsworth Theater, and in San Francisco at A.C.T. Recent credits include Séance on a Wet Afternoon at New York City Opera, A Room With a View at the Old Globe, the rolling world premiere of Theresa Rebeck’s What We’re Up Against at the Alley Theatre, and Arsenic Old Lace starring Tovah Feldshuh and Betty Buckley at Dallas Theater Center. Regional theaters include Arizona Theatre Company, Asolo Rep, Berkshire Theater Festival, Cleveland Playhouse, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center, La Jolla Playhouse, Old Globe, Pasadena Playhouse, PCPA, Prince Theater, Rubicon, Signature Theater, TheatreWorks, Virginia Stage Company, Westport Country Playhouse. Mr. Schwartz is an Associate Artist at the Alley, member of SDC, and a graduate of Harvard University.

MICHAEL JENKINSON (Choreographer) makes his Geva Theatre Center debut with Next to Normal. He is an actor, director, choreographer and teacher at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts Theaterfest. For PCPA he has choreographed and acted in more than 40 productions, including Les Misérables, Ragtime, The Hot Mikado, and the American premiere of Stephen Schwartz’s musical My Fairytale directed by Scott Schwartz. As a director for PCPA, Mr. Jenkinson has staged The Music Man, West Side Story, Hairspray and most recently, Legally Blonde. This past spring Mr. Jenkinson collaborated once again with Scott Schwartz on the world premiere of A Room With a View at the Old Globe in San Diego. Other theatre companies include A Contemporary Theatre. Balagan Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Delaware Theatre Company, North Shore Music Theatre, Gateway Playhouse, TheatreWorks, Oregon Cabaret Theatre, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Sierra Repertory Theatre and Sacramento Theatre Company. He has also been a part of the national touring companies of Fame, Grease, the Macau, and China International Arts Festival tour of Grease and the Korean tour of Fame (choreographer and dance supervisor). Mr. Jenkinson is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association and SDC.

KEVIN RIGDON (Scenic Designer) makes his Geva Theatre Center debut with Next to Normal. Broadway productions include The Grapes of Wrath, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Buried Child, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, The Song of Jacob Zulu, Our Town, Ghetto, The Caretaker, Speed-the-Plow, Glengarry Glen Ross; West End productions of Waiting for Godot, You Never Can Tell, Orphans; Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, Man and Superman, Miss Julie, The Importance of Being Earnest for the Peter Hall Company. Other theatres include Lincoln Center Theater, Royal National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Donmar Warehouse, Cameri Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Goodman Theatre. Mr. Rigdon is the Associate Director of Design for Houston’s Alley Theatre and the Moores Professor of Theatre at University of Houston.

SYDNEY ROBERTS (Costume Designer) makes her Geva Theatre Center debut with Next to Normal. Productions include Hairspray, the Musical at Red Mountain Theatre in Birmingham; I Just Stopped By to See the Man and Spoon Lake Blues at Alliance Theatre; The Wizard of Oz and HONK! at Hertz Stage, Grey Gardens at Actor’s Express; Cotton Patch Gospel at Theatrical Outfit; The Colored Museum with True Colors Theatre Company; Women + War with Synchronicity Theatre, as well as productions for Swallowtale Dance Company in Chattanooga and Portland Center Stage, among others. She is an Associate Artist at Georgia Shakespeare. Film credits include Ruthie. Ms Roberts will design The Cherry Orchard next spring with Theatre Emory. A proud member of IATSE/USA 829.

MIKE BALDASSARI (Lighting Designer) makes his Geva Theatre Center debut with Next to Normal. Mr. Baldassari is a Tony-and Emmy-nominated designer whose work has been seen in 25+ countries. He co-designed the Broadway hit revival of Cabaret for which he received Tony and Drama Desk award nominations and received the Entertainment Design Award. He designed the lighting for the national tours of Spam-a-Lot, Ring of Fire, Man of La Mancha, Will Rogers Follies, Fame, Spider-Man and Grease, and the European tour of Beauty and the Beast. Family entertainment credits include Super Why!, Yo Gabba Gabba!, Madagascar. He was the Production designer for Alice in Chains, and co-designed Neil Young’s “Chrome Dreams” and was the Lighting director for Young’s “Harvest Moon” tour. Theatrical lighting for movie musicals includes Rock of Ages and Nine and he collaborated on concert lighting for the film Neil Young Trunk Show. He received an Emmy nomination for his Lighting Direction of “Garth Brooks In Central Park.” Film credits include Joyful Noise, Sex and the City 2 and Going the Distance. Television credits include many digital shorts for “Saturday Night Live.” mike-o-matic.com

CLAY BENNING (Sound Designer) makes his Geva Theatre Center debut with Next to Normal. Regional credits include more than 75 productions at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, where he has been the resident sound designer for thirteen years. Recent works include Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, Into the Woods, God of Carnage and The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls. He is an Associate Artist at Georgia Shakespeare with more than 20 productions to his credit. Other designs include Atlanta Ballet, Cincinnati Playhouse, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Theatrical Outfit, and Synchronicity Theatre. He is the recipient of the Suzi Best Bass awards for Outstanding Sound Design 2006, 2007 and 2009. He is a graduate of Presbyterian College (B.A.), North Carolina School of the Arts (M.F.A.) and a member of IATSE/USA829.

CELISE KALKE (Co-Dramaturg) joined the staff of the Alliance Theatre in 2005, where she works on the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition and oversees or performs dramaturgical activity for the theatre. Musical revivals include Jelly’s Last Jam, Sophisticated Ladies, Into the Woods, Sammy and Me, Two Gents (Public Theatre) and My Fair Lady (Court Theatre), while her work on new musicals includes Women of Brewster Place and Ghost Brother of Darkland County. Before moving to the Alliance she was the Director of the Literary Department at the Public Theater in New York. She was also the Resident Dramaturg for Court Theatre in Chicago.

VESSELA WARNER (Co-Dramaturg) is an Assistant Professor of Theatre History at The University of Alabama at Birmingham. She also serves as dramaturg of the experimental Overground Physical Theatre Company in NYC. Ms. Warner has contributed articles and reviews to many academic publications She is currently editing an anthology of foreign drama and a book on the alternative theatre in Eastern Europe.

DON KOT (Music Director) is Resident Music Director and Affiliate Artist at Geva Theatre Center where he celebrates his eleventh season!  Geva productions include Company, The Music Man, Five Course Love, Sweeney Todd, The House in Hydesville, Cabaret, Urinetown, Our Town, Inherit the Wind, A Chorus Line, Camelot, 1776, A Christmas Carol, Convenience and as part of Hibernatus Interruptus, The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World, One For My Baby, right next to me and An Evening with Mrs. Kasha Davis, International Celebrity Housewife.  New York credits include the Women’s Culture Project, Roads Traveled, and elegies for angels, punks and raging queens.  Regional credits include The Best of Forbidden Broadway, Smokey Joe's Café, Leader of the Pack, Honk!, and The Most Happy Fella.  Mr. Kot has played for the national touring productions of Fosse, Footloose, Fiddler on the Roof, The King and I, Mamma Mia and Hairspray.   Mr. Kot is also the Director of Musical Theatre at Nazareth College.

VERONICA AGLOW (Stage Manager) returns to Geva Theatre Center where she last stage managed You Can’t Take It With You, Company, A Raisin in the Sun, A Christmas Carol, Dracula, On Golden Pond, Girls Night The Musical and assistant stage managed Superior Donuts, Perfect Wedding, The Music Man and Over the Tavern. Ms. Aglow stage managed the Philadelphia run of Girls Night at the Kimmel Center’s Innovation Studio, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Little Shop of Horrors at the Devon Theatre. Favorite credits include productions of Parade, Can-Can, and the world premiere of Broadway’s American Idiot. Ms. Aglow is a proud graduate of Point Park University. As always, she would like to thank her super-supportive parents, who have helped make her dreams a reality.

FRANK CAVALLO (Assistant Stage Manager) returns to Geva Theatre Center where he has stage managed numerous productions, including Freud’s Last Session, Superior Donuts, Perfect Wedding, On Golden Pond, The Music Man, A Raisin in the Sun, Anything Goes, Below the Belt, Five Guys Named Moe (twice), Vigil, several Reflections Festival premieres and the occasional production of A Christmas Carol. He has also worked as a stage manager at various other regional theatres, as the production manager for the Rochester Children’s Theatre at Nazareth College, and toured for Poetry in Motion with Ms. Salome Jens’ one woman show, About Anne…, featuring the poetry of Anne Sexton. Many thanks to the Geva Staff. It’s nice to be back.

JENNY DANIELS (Assistant Stage Manager) is very excited to be returning to Geva Theatre Center for her fifth season and her first season as an AEA ASM. After studying at SUNY Brockport Ms. Daniels was very grateful to be able to work at Glimmerglass Opera’s Stage Operations department for their 2006 and 2007 seasons. Some favorite past credits at Geva include A Christmas Carol, The Music Man, Over the Tavern, Almost Maine, A Christmas Story, and Sweeney Todd.