<HTML><HEAD></HEAD>
<BODY dir=ltr>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000">
<P class=MsoNormal
style="BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"
align=center><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial'><FONT
face=Georgia>Porthouse’s marvelous ‘Next to Normal’</FONT></SPAN></B><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"'><FONT
face=Arial> is everything but entertaining</FONT></SPAN></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"
align=center><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BACKGROUND-REPEAT: repeat; BACKGROUND-ATTACHMENT: scroll; BACKGROUND-POSITION: 0% 0%; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"'><FONT
color=#212121 face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN></B> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; tab-stops: 45.8pt 91.6pt 137.4pt 183.2pt 229.0pt 274.8pt 320.6pt 366.4pt 412.2pt 458.0pt 503.8pt 549.6pt 595.4pt 641.2pt 687.0pt 732.8pt"
align=center><SPAN
style='BORDER-TOP: windowtext 1pt; FONT-FAMILY: ; BORDER-RIGHT: windowtext 1pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: windowtext 1pt; COLOR: ; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; PADDING-TOP: 0in; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; BORDER-LEFT: windowtext 1pt; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in'><FONT
face=Georgia>Bob Abelman</FONT></SPAN><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"'></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; tab-stops: 45.8pt 91.6pt 137.4pt 183.2pt 229.0pt 274.8pt 320.6pt 366.4pt 412.2pt 458.0pt 503.8pt 549.6pt 595.4pt 641.2pt 687.0pt 732.8pt"
align=center><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style='BORDER-TOP: windowtext 1pt; FONT-FAMILY: ; BORDER-RIGHT: windowtext 1pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: windowtext 1pt; COLOR: ; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; PADDING-TOP: 0in; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; BORDER-LEFT: windowtext 1pt; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in'><FONT
face=Georgia>Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning
Journal</FONT></SPAN></I><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"'></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal; tab-stops: 45.8pt 91.6pt 137.4pt 183.2pt 229.0pt 274.8pt 320.6pt 366.4pt 412.2pt 458.0pt 503.8pt 549.6pt 595.4pt 641.2pt 687.0pt 732.8pt"
align=center><SPAN
style='BORDER-TOP: windowtext 1pt; FONT-FAMILY: ; BORDER-RIGHT: windowtext 1pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: windowtext 1pt; COLOR: ; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; PADDING-TOP: 0in; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; BORDER-LEFT: windowtext 1pt; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in'><FONT
face=Georgia>Member, American Theatre Critics Association</FONT></SPAN><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"'></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"'><FONT
face="Times New Roman"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><FONT
face=Georgia><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial'>Porthouse
Theatre patrons still enchanted by the wonderfully effervescent, welcomingly
</SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-bidi-font-family: arial">escapist, highly
entertaining </SPAN><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial'>production
of “Anything Goes” are likely to experience severe vertigo during Brian Yorkey
and Tom Kitt’s musical “Next To Normal,” now on stage.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial'><FONT
face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial'><FONT
face=Georgia>In addition to its multiple 2009 Tony Awards, the show won a 2010
Pulitzer Prize.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That year’s
Pulitzer for feature writing went to The Washington Post for its <SPAN
style="COLOR: "><FONT color=#333333>haunting story about parents who
accidentally kill their children by forgetting them in cars.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A </FONT></SPAN>Pulitzer in theater
suggests a similarly serious, thought-provoking, buzz-killing
enterprise.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial'><FONT
face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><FONT
face=Georgia><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial'>The
musical is about a contemporary American family crippled by mental disease.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It offers a portrait of a chronically
manic-depressive, delusional mother and how this disease infiltrates and infects
her compassionate husband and teenage daughter</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ">.</SPAN></FONT><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial'></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial'><FONT
face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial'><FONT
face=Georgia>The production, directed by Jim Weaver as if its characters’ lives
depended on it, is emotionally gripping from start to finish.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So gripping, in fact, that you forget to
blink, you forget to breathe, and the sound you hear underscoring the
orchestration is the audience’s gasping.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial'><FONT
face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><FONT
face="Times New Roman"><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style='BORDER-TOP: windowtext 1pt; FONT-FAMILY: ; BORDER-RIGHT: windowtext 1pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: windowtext 1pt; COLOR: ; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; PADDING-TOP: 0in; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; BORDER-LEFT: windowtext 1pt; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in'>For
more of this article, go to </SPAN></I><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"'><FONT
color=#0563c1>www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/bob_abelman/</FONT></SPAN></FONT><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"'></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial'><FONT
face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>