A Chance to Get Back to 'Normal'

Alice Ripley will reprise her off-Broadway role as Diana, a harried suburban mom with bipolar disorder, in the musical "Next to Normal" at Arena Stage, Nov. 21-Jan. 18.

"I feel like I've been waiting my whole life to play this role," says Ripley, who grew up in a blended family of divorced parents, a stepmother and 10 siblings and stepsiblings.

"My mother is always the most vulnerable person in any room, and so I definitely have that part of her inside me," the singer-actress says. "I think Diana is a lot like my mother in her theatricality, her sparkle and her joie de vivre, and also in the fact that she throws cutlery across the stage at one point."

The show, with music by Tom Kitt and book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey, premiered in a limited run at Second Stage Theatre in New York last winter. Michael Greif ("Rent," "Grey Gardens") will direct "Next to Normal" again at Arena. Joining Ripley will be J. Robert Spencer in the role of Diana's husband (played in New York by Brian d'Arcy James).

The musical has some spoken dialogue but is mostly sung. Ripley says it feels to her like a rock opera (she was in the original cast of "The Who's Tommy") but with "lyrical" interludes.

The actress sounds like she's raring to get back to "Next to Normal," after a run of only two months at Second Stage. "That was just enough to realize kind of what was yet to be discovered," she says.

Some criticism in New York cited aspects of the show that felt a bit like a disease-of-the-week TV movie. Changes were made to address such issues, Ripley says, adding that everyone involved realized the problem was one of tone and the "fine line between realistic and melodrama."

"It should be played realistically, almost cinematically, but it's larger than life when Diana breaks down," Ripley says. "I'm hoping that this D.C. production will define the tone in a beautiful way so that without a doubt, a majority of people in the room will . . . see it and appreciate the beauty of it and never be tempted to see it with a cynical eye."

The performer is certainly no stranger to high drama expressed in song. She and Emily Skinner earned Tony nominations in 1998 for playing conjoined twins Violet and Daisy Hilton in the musical "Side Show." (The colleagues reunited last April in a cabaret at the Kennedy Center.) At the Kennedy Center, audiences saw Ripley in the 2002 Sondheim Celebration as the petrified bride in "Company," singing the 100 mph "Getting Married Today," and later in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Tell Me on a Sunday."

Ripley says she doesn't always beg her family to see every show she's in. But with "Next to Normal," she says, "I sent an e-mail to everybody and said, you really have to catch the show, because it's about our heritage. . . . It's the suburbs, it's the family, it's the impossible task of making it look easy and getting it together." Like making theater.

Bravo, Ford's, Bravo

Before Ford's Theatre closed for renovation a year ago, theatergoers could be assured of several inconveniences that had little to do with the quality of what happened onstage.

Among them: those straight-backed, armless chairs, a good number of them with partially obstructed views; no snack bar; limited restroom capacity in the basement museum; and a devil of a time hearing from certain parts of the auditorium if the actors weren't miked.

When the theater reopens in February for the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth, it will offer theatergoers several things to cheer about, including a concessions cafe (hooray!) in the new lobby/box office area adjacent to the theater (with a pass-through into the historic building); expanded ground-floor restrooms (hooray again); and accessibility to the entire theater for patrons with disabilities (hooray 3).

Inside Ford's proper, there will be about 650 seats, rearranged to eliminate most of the obstructed views (hooray 4). They will be theater-style seats (hooray 5) that flip up, with armrests and cushioning, upholstered in a 19th-century pattern. About 600 of the old (and unlamented) seats, purchased in 1986, will be offered for sale to the public. (Call 202-397-7328 or visit http://www.Ticketmaster.com/promo/f2ckx9.)

Then there are the acoustics. The open "fly space" above the stage is more than four stories high. Actors will tell you they can hear their unamplified voices floating up instead of out into the audience. Ford's Producing Director Paul Tetreault, during a hard-hat tour for reporters last Wednesday, said an acoustics expert has determined that at least 50 percent of the problem was caused by a noisy air conditioning and heating system. A quieter one, which distributes air differently, should bring about a marked improvement. That's provisional hooray No. 6.

In the fly space, a new steel grid system will increase the theater's capacity to swoop set pieces on and off safely. It also will have new, fully accessible dressing rooms and showers backstage. Those facilities may look plain, Tetreault said, but actors will consider them "palatial and lovely." Hoorays 7 and 8 -- from offstage.

Follow Spot

· Open Circle Theatre, which blends casts of regularly abled actors and those with disabilities, will present "Story Theatre" by Paul Sills, Saturday through Sept. 13 at Round House Theatre's Silver Spring space. Sills's 1968 play calls for performers to use improvisational techniques to re-imagine fairy tales and fables. Call 240-683-0305 or e-mail director@opencircletheatre.org.