‘Next to Normal’ wins the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for drama

‘Next to Normal’ wins Pulitzer Prize for drama

NEW YORK — “Next to Normal,” a musical about the complexity and heartbreak of a woman’s mental illness and its effect on her family, has won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

“The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt,” by T.J. Stiles won the biography prize, and “Tinkers,” by Paul Harding, won the fiction award.

A posthumous Special Citation was given to Hank Williams for his “craftsmanship as a songwriter who expressed universal feelings with poignant simplicity and played a pivotal role in transforming country music into a major musical and cultural force in American life.”

Williams died Jan. 1, 1953, at the age of 29, cutting short a career that forever changed country music. Hits such as “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” ”Cold Cold Heart” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” have been rerecorded by hundreds of musicians and more than 50 years after his death he remains a central figure in country music.

Other winners announced by Columbia University on Monday were: “Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World,” by Liaquat Ahamed, for history; “Versed,” by Rae Armantrout, for poetry; “The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy,” by David E. Hoffman for general nonfiction; and Violin Concerto by Jennifer Higdon, won the music prize.

“Next to Normal” began life more than 10 years ago as a 10-minute musical, a class project for Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt at the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. One night, Yorkey was watching a television report on shock therapy or ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) and was intrigued by something said on the program: The vast majority of patients who receive ECT are women and the majority of doctors who prescribe it are men.

Out of that idea, the show was born. It went through various incarnations, first in 2005 at the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), where it attracted the attention of producer David Stone, and then three years later at off-Broadway’s Second Stage Theatre.

Stone, one of the producers of “Wicked,” took the musical to Washington’s Arena Stage for more reworking in November 2008 before bringing the show back to New York. The $4 million production opened at Broadway’s Booth Theatre in April 2009, where it is still playing. It won three Tony Awards, including a best score prize for Yorkey and Kitt.

“Next to Normal” is the eighth musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The first was “Of Thee I Sing” in 1932 and the last was “Rent” in 1996.