Alice Ripley
This weekend, gifted singing actress Alice Ripley ends her nearly one-and-a-half year and critically acclaimed run in the Broadway production of the Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Next to Normal at the Booth Theatre.

"I'm feeling energized and relaxed, and happy that I feel that way, instead of beat up and worn out," Ripley told me earlier this week as she approached her final July 18 performance. "That's good, [although] I feel very sad about leaving the Booth. I've had this romance with that theatre: It's just such a beautiful space, so I'm really going to miss that."

Ripley's performance as a mom struggling with mental health issues earned her unanimous praise throughout the industry as well as the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Looking back on Tony night, Ripley says, "I remember feeling part of me going, 'I've been working for this for a long time,' and then the bigger part of me was completely flabbergasted that it actually happened. I think I felt good about people's faith in my contribution. That's really what it was, but it's a real nerve-wracking experience to go through, the whole thing."

The former star of Side Show, The Rocky Horror Show and Sunset Boulevard, among other Broadway shows, says she keeps her Tony and her Helen Hayes Award — which she won for Normal's pre-Broadway Washington, DC, engagement — in her bathroom. "I have this cool bathroom cabinet that has mirrors on the inside as well as the outside, and it's kind of a generous area," Ripley explains. "There are three cabinets in this wall, so I thought I could just devote one [to the awards], and that's what I've done. It's kind of nice; it reminds me when I'm getting ready [to go to the theatre] what I might be getting ready for."

When asked how she believes her performance has changed during her 16-month Broadway run, Ripley says, "Well, all I can say is I can tell you what people have told me about my performance or just tell you how it makes me feel. People have said that it has changed and then, I feel like I've changed, so if I've changed, the performance has changed. So, it probably has, and I'm hoping it's grown because you're always looking to fill in details."

	Ripley in Next to Normal
	photo by Joan Marcus

Because the demanding role requires Ripley to ride an emotional roller coaster, one wonders how long it takes the actress — who seemingly delves deep into her soul eight times a week — to unwind after a performance. "That's an interesting question because it changes day to day," Ripley says. "There is a pattern that emerges, and it has to do with the traffic and the energy backstage after the show, too. It's not a simple procedure to just get out of Diana and just get into Alice. It's a process, so I kind of have to still be 'on,' and when I get home, that's when I deal with it. I have to wind down, I have to warm down with my voice and do some hydrotherapy . . . in the shower. I like to be alone [and have] a lot of alone time to recover from Diana. So I try to be mute and still, because in this role, it's very taxing: what's required of me physically as far as the response goes, and the initiation of the response – bringing up the song, coming up with the energy that it takes to bring up this piece that we're delivering."

The musical is not only an emotional experience for its actors but also for audience members. Many return time and time again to experience the Tom Kitt-Brian Yorkey production. In fact, Ripley says, "Every night at the stage door and every day [in the] mailbox, in my snail mail and email, and my inbox in Facebook, which I'm addicted to, I'll get messages from people saying how the show [affected them], and those stories include everything that you could imagine, as far as telling me their personal story about what happened to them or somebody they lost, or somebody that they miss, or some joy in their life. [The musical is] about looking at your emotions and dealing with them, I guess, so people find a lot of joy through the show, and they also find things in themselves that they've never seen before, and then they want to share that with me. I hear a lot of personal stories from people at the stage door, too. Our audience is wonderful. I love them — I go offstage after my last exit, and I spy on the audience."

During the past few weeks of her Broadway experience with Next to Normal, Ripley was reunited with Brian d'Arcy James, who created the role of Dan Goodman during the musical's Off-Broadway run at Second Stage Theatre but was unable to open the show on Broadway because he was busy playing the titular green ogre in Broadway's Shrek the Musical. Ripley says she is crazy about James, who is "a wonderful actor. He's very generous on stage, and for some reason, we have something that works together. It feels kind of silky, kind of easy to be around him and to work with him onstage. There's mutual respect, and also, on a personal note, when I was at Second Stage, I didn't feel like I could really deliver the show like I wanted to, because I had a vocal injury, and I was having problems integrating Diana with who I am. I guess the way that I approach acting [is] just by living it, living the role onstage and then offstage, finding a balance if you can. So back then, at Second Stage, I had a hard time integrating all of that, and when Brian and I were together, it felt like we never really did the show together, from my perspective. So, it's like a honeymoon right now because we're finally getting to do it together. I'm really happy that I get to spend a few weeks doing it with him. He's making my exit from the show easy." Continued...