UAMS to Sponsor Performance of ‘Next to Normal’
| FAYETTEVILLE – A performance of the Tony Award-winning musical drama “Next to Normal” will be hosted by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ (UAMS) Psychiatric Research Institute – Northwest on May 1 at TheatreSquared in the Walton Arts Center’s Nadine Baum Studios.
Tickets are $20, which includes a reception beginning at 6:30 p.m. and a question-and-answer session with members of the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute – Northwest’s faculty following the performance, which begins at 7 p.m. Tickets may be purchased at www.giving.uams.edu/nexttonormal.
“Next to Normal” is an entertaining and insightful look at bipolar disorder, a serious and often misunderstood medical condition that affects more than 2.5 million adults nationally.
A winner of three Tony Awards in 2009, “Next to Normal” also won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, only the eighth musical to receive that honor. But it was not those distinctions that drew the Psychiatric Research Institute – Northwest to the play, but its central theme of a family coping with the mental illness of one of its members.
“The play revolves around a mother who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a very real and serious problem not only in northwest Arkansas but throughout the United States,” said Michael Hollomon, M.D., medical director of the Psychiatric Research Institute – Northwest, which is based in the Northwest Medical Center in Springdale. “We understand the problems this can cause within a family and hope the play will encourage people in similar circumstances to openly discuss these issues. The Psychiatric Research Institute – Northwest is proud to be partnering with TheatreSquared on this very special play.”
For more information, call Tim Hudson at (479) 713-8103.
UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a hospital; a statewide network of regional centers; and seven institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy, the Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, the Psychiatric Research Institute, the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging and the Translational Research Institute. Named best Little Rock metropolitan area hospital by U.S. News & World Report, it is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. UAMS has more than 2,800 students and 790 medical residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 10,000 employees, including about 1,000 physicians and other professionals who provide care to patients at UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the VA Medical Center and UAMS regional centers throughout the state. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com.