Go to a show, buy some tickets!

Since it's bypassing Boston, I expect quite a few New England theatre fans will trek to Providence next year to see Alice Ripley sing her heart out in the touring production of Next to Normal.

It's not often that a performer goes on tour in her Tony-winning role and I thought Ripley gave a gut-wrenching performance as a wife and mother in the throes of mental illness. Here's my review of the musical, which you can still see on Broadway.

Individual tickets go on sale Monday, July 26, at 10 a.m. at the Providence Performing Arts Center. But you can click here to buy them now, using the code PPAC. Next to Normal runs from March 22-27, 2011.

Other musicals on PPAC's 2010-2011 lineup that go on sale next week include South Pacific (Dec. 7-12), In the Heights (Jan. 11-16), and West Side Story (April 26-May 1). I enjoyed all three of them on Broadway.

As President Obama said last night, during a concert at the White House saluting Broadway and musical theatre: "Not that I’m trying to boost the economy or anything but go to a show! Buy some tickets!”

Stage door stories from 2009

I'm not ashamed to admit it: I'm a fangirl. A part of me still finds it amazing that after I see a Broadway show, most of the time I can meet the actors and actresses whose work I've just enjoyed. (And it's not just the more famous ones. I'm thrilled to meet the cast of every show.)

So I can't end 2009 without mentioning some of my favorite stage door experiences of the year. And of course I want to thank the performers who took the time to sign my Playbill, talk to me or on a few occasions when I was brave enough to ask, pose for a picture.

Sadly, I did not get autographs from Hugh Jackman or Daniel Craig after A Steady Rain but I was smart enough to hand my camera to Steve On Broadway, who snapped some nice pictures of the man from Oz looking very jaunty in his gray scarf and fedora.

Among the other highlights:

James Gandolfini from God of Carnage. I'm a Sopranos fan, so this was exciting. Usually, if it's someone I know from TV or movies, I manage to say something along the lines of "loved you on this TV program or in that movie and it's so wonderful to see you on stage." This time, maybe because he came out so quickly after the play ended, I was tongue-tied. Gandolfini was quiet, although he did laugh when someone asked about a Sopranos movie. ("I don't think so.")

Neil Patrick Harris. This was completely unexpected. Apparently, NPH attended the same performance of Waiting for Godot that I did because I saw him going in the stage door. People were clamoring for autographs and he promised to sign when he came out - and he did, as well as pose for pictures. This was the day before he was hosting the Tony awards and I'm sure he had a busy schedule but he was exceedingly friendly and gracious.

Ernie Hudson from Joe Turner's Come and Gone. It was great meeting the entire cast but best of all was spending a few minutes listening to Hudson talk about it had been like the previous week, when the president and first lady were in the audience. He was clearly still excited about it. (Hudson said everyone onstage was temporarily blinded from cell-phone cameras going off when the Secret Service brought the Obamas to their seats for Act II.)

Steven Pasquale from reasons to be pretty. I saw this play in the afternoon on the day of the Tony awards. Pasquale's character is a creep and not very nice to his wife. In real life, Pasquale is married to Laura Benanti, who was hosting the Tony preshow. As he walked away with an assistant, I heard him inquire about her in a way that struck me as so sweet and caring. Quite different from the character I'd just seen him portray. Yes, I know it's called acting but the contrast just reinforced what a great job he did onstage.

Jessica Hynes from The Norman Conquests. Hynes played the frazzled Annie, who cares for her needy but unseen mother and desperately needs a break. I told her how much I enjoyed her performance, how it related to the circumstances of my life and really resonated with me. She asked me whether she'd "gotten it right." I assured her that she definitely had. And I was touched - and impressed - that she cared enough to ask.

Alice Ripley from Next to Normal. This was after her second show of the day and Ripley took a long time to make her way around the circle of fans. She was stopping to talk with almost everyone and I could tell some of the conversations were intense. My guess is that because she plays a woman struggling with mental illness, she meets a fair number of people who have a family member in a similar situation. And from what I could tell, she wasn't brushing anyone off but was taking the time to listen.

Catherine Zeta-Jones from A Little Night Music. In the past three years of going to Broadway shows I've met Oscar winners and Tony winners and Emmy winners. But when Zeta-Jones came out of the stage door, looking perfectly made-up and glamorous, I thought to myself, "That's a movie star." She signed autographs, acknowledged fans from Wales and and Scotland who'd come to see her, and in minutes, was whisked away by a waiting SUV, leaving some Hollywood glitter in her wake.

Special bonus celebrity sighting - While I was waiting for the cast of A Little Night Music, I saw an elderly man being helped into the front passenger's side of Zeta-Jones' SUV. It was her father-in-law, 93-year-old Kirk Douglas! I wanted to rush over and tell him about the key role he played in my life, but I resisted. Still, it was awesome to see that unmistakable profile. (And he blogged about going to see ALNM on MySpace!)

Sarah Rosenthal from Ragtime. Sarah, who's 13 and making her Broadway debut, was very sweet at the stage door. She signed my Playbill and asked me, with all the seriousness and polish of a seasoned performer, "So, where are you from?"

In an interview with the Baltimore Sun, Sarah talked about how she spent weeks practicing her signature to make it distinctive. "There have been so many times that I've waited outside a stage door in the cold to get someone's autograph," she says. "It's exciting to think that now, someone might want my autograph."

Is Alice Ripley's mercury rising?

I'm so glad Downstage Center is back but while the American Theatre Wing podcast was on hiatus, I had a chance to catch up on some of the older interviews.

For example, I hadn't listened to the interview with Alice Ripley, which aired in February 2008. This was before Next to Normal opened on Broadway, when it was at New York's Second Stage Theatre. And she's just as forthcoming as she was when I met her at the stage door.

At one point Ripley is asked about her eating habits. She explains that she's very careful what she puts into her body because it can affect her singing voice. Apparently honey helps her respiratory system.

And then there was this, which truly made me gasp:

"It's always a challenge to figure out what to eat in between shows on a two-show day. Sushi's usually a good thing. But you know you have make sure you eat just the right thing because you don't want to be weighed down by it."

Sushi?! Yikes. Alice, please be careful with that, okay?

Next to Normal

Gratuitous Violins rating: ***1/2 out of ****

I've been fortunate to end each of my past three Broadway seasons with a memorable musical - Spring Awakening in 2007, The Lion King in 2008 and in 2009, Next to Normal, the best new musical I saw this year.

Now don't get me wrong - I loved Tony-winner Billy Elliot. It's just so hard to compare the two. I loved each of them for what they are - Billy's dancing and the poignancy and humor in its story of a young boy discovering his passion.

But with Next to Normal, composer Tom Kitt and lyricist and book writer Brian Yorkey have accomplished something so rare on Broadway - an original story about a complex subject. The result is a compelling and compassionate look at how one person's mental illness can devastate a family.

Alice Ripley gives a searing performance as Diana, a wife and mother struggling with delusions and feelings of depression and the side effects of her treatment. I was in the third row and I'm not exaggerating when I say I could see the pain on her face. She deservedly won the Tony award.

I think it's a tribute to director Michael Greif that despite her episodes of madness, Ripley's Diana never seemed over the top, a stereotypical "crazy person," but always believable. The sparse, almost industrial-looking design by Mark Wendland is the opposite of comforting and homey.

But Ripley isn't the only one in pain and I think that's what gives Next to Normal a great deal of its power. J. Robert Spencer, who plays her husband, Dan, and Jennifer Damiano, as their teenage daughter Natalie, are heartbreaking as they show how Diana's illness has affected their lives.

Adam Chanler-Berat is very sweet and tender as Henry, a boy who loves Natalie and Kyle Dean Massey is mesmerizing as Gabe, who hovers over this story, literally and figuratively. And Louis Hobson, who plays two of Diana's doctors, comes across as caring and professional.

I think that Kitt and Yorkey, who won the Tony for Best Score, do a very effective job of telling the story through song. The vibrant rock 'n' roll sound reminds me a little of Spring Awakening. The lyrics are rich and evocative. They convey so well what each character is going through - how they feel, their fears and frustrations.

In fact, the story is presented so powerfully, as much as I loved it I'm not sure I could ever sit through Next to Normal again. Some parts were pretty tough to watch.

I'm not saying Next to Normal is perfect. For one thing, there's a plot point that's a mystery throughout the first act and I'm not sure Yorkey and Kitt made the right decision in stringing us along. The way it's finally explained is different from what I expected. And I'm not sure I totally buy the explanation.

I know some people have criticized Next to Normal as an attack on psychiatry, as an endorsement of a very risky path for someone like Diana. (For a spoilerish but insightful discussion, check out Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals.)

While I respect those opinions, and I think my friend and fellow blogger Chris Caggiano makes some excellent points, I honestly didn't see Next to Normal as bashing psychiatry or treatment for mental illness or even romanticizing it.

For one thing, I don't think Diana ever leaves the care of a doctor. And I think that for people struggling with mental illness, events can unfold exactly the way they do in this musical. Sometimes treatment works but sometimes it doesn't. Or it works for a time and then stops. And I admire Next to Normal for not trying to tie things up neat and tidy.

I see Next to Normal as a depiction of the difficulty in treating mental illness despite the best efforts of doctors, despite all of the tools that modern medicine has to offer, despite people in the throes of it wanting to get better, despite the love and care and desperate hopes of families.

The talented and gracious Ms. Ripley

One of the thrills of going to Broadway has been the chance to meet the actors afterward and get my Playbill signed.

It's not simply the signature - it's hopefully sharing a few words with a performer whose work I've just enjoyed. You can't do that after watching a movie or a tv show.

I realize that the actors don't have to come out, so whenever they do I appreciate it. This time, like my previous trips to New York, I've had some wonderful experiences.

But seeing the herculean effort Alice Ripley made to greet fans at the stage door after Next to Normal Sunday night truly was something special.

This was her second show of the day in a very demanding role that's almost entirely sung - there's very little spoken dialog in Next to Normal. So she must have been exhausted. Still, she looked great - full of energy, talking and posing for pictures. (And as you can see, she has a pretty distinct signature. It's like a work of art!)

I'm not very good with crowd estimates but there must have been at least a hundred people waiting for her at the Booth Theatre stage door, in Shubert Alley. Her fellow cast members, J. Robert Spencer, Adam Chanler-Berat, Kyle Dean Massey and Louis Hobson, had already come out and signed.

(The only one I missed was Jennifer Damiano. This has happened to me before, where I've gotten every cast member's autograph but one. There must be a rule that one person must stay away from the stage door, just like one Cabinet member is at a secure and undisclosed location during the president's State of the Union address.)

Ms. Ripley took a long time to make her way around the circle of fans. She wasn't simply signing her name, she was stopping to talk with almost everyone. As she got closer to where I was standing, I could tell that she was having some pretty intense conversations.

My guess is that because she plays a woman struggling with mental illness, she meets a fair number of people who have a family member in a similar situation. And from what I could tell, she wasn't brushing anyone off but was taking the time to listen.

When it was my turn, I congratulated her on her well-deserved Tony award. I told her I thought Next to Normal was such a compelling look at a family in crisis.

I expected her to thank me and move on, but she kept talking, about how this was such a great role for a woman and how most musicals are centered around men and she's been waiting for this opportunity for so long. She just volunteered all of this. I didn't even have to ask a question!

The one thing that made me angry was the woman standing next to me with four Playbills. I asked her why she was getting four of them signed and she said two were for friends and two were for her.

Now, I don't have a problem with getting a Playbill signed for a friend. It's a wonderful, thoughtful thing to do and I treasure the ones friends have gotten for me. I've done it myself for other people. But four? That seemed excessive. I'm just hoping none of those end up on eBay.

As I left Shubert Alley I could see Ripley still talking to the remnants of the crowd. What a gracious, classy woman. I'm so glad that I made a point of telling her how how much I appreciated the time she spent with us.

So here's to you, Alice Ripley and to all of the other actors who've taken the time to sign Playbills, pose for pictures, share a few words with fans. For me, your graciousness is part of what makes going to the theatre so exciting and so unique.