The rock musical, Next to Normal, was a play ahead of its time. It launched in 2008, telling the story of a mother, Diana Goodman, struggling to deal with bipolar disorder and the need to maintain family life. It discusses topics that weren’t talked about fifteen years ago – grief, depression, suicide, drug abuse, and the ambivalence and confusion that infect those around the sufferer. Next to Normal is the story of a family that struggles to be normal in times where normal ceased to exist. The time for it to be told is now.

Pablo del Campo, founder of Del Campo Saatchi & Saatchi, saw the ground-breaking musical in 2010 and brought it to Buenos Aires, where it played for ten consecutive seasons under his creative leadership.

Now the creative mind of Del Campo has reimagined the play. The new adaptation of Next to Normal has no sets or props, and plays in a 2,000 sqm venue, using surround-sound and 360 degree projections. The cast performs in English, with Spanish and Catalan supertitles, alongside the audience members, who sit in small cubes and become witnesses sharing living quarters with the Goodman family. It’s more intimate, more involving and more compelling. The live musical has had its worldwide premiere as part of the Barcelona Grec Festival program, co-produced by Del Campo Global, Layers of Reality and Festival Grec.

“I am very happy with the creative result we have achieved. There are ideas that may seem excellent when thought about, but only when they come true we realise their true magnitude. I am personally shocked. And, fortunately, the public of a city as cosmopolitan as Barcelona, ​​too,” Pablo del Campo stated.

“I feel like we’re creating a way to tell a musical for the ‘Netflix generation’. From my place, always connected to the world of ideas and storytelling, today, I feel that this Next to Normal Immersive is like my Titanium at the Cannes Festival.”

Del Campo has built quite a collection of spectacular creative successes. So far, these have included getting Federer and Nadal to face each other on a half-brick-half-grass court, 90 Lions at Cannes for brands such as AB InBev, Playstation, Procter & Gamble, Mondelez, and Coca-Cola, leading his agency to be named International Agency of the Year by Advertising Age and was ranked in the top 10 of the Gunn Report for more than ten years in addition to being Best Agency in Buenos Aires’ creative advertising festival, El Ojo de Iberoamérica, for five consecutive years.

Alice Ripley, who played the lead in the Broadway version for which she won a Tony Award, leads the live cast. Adam Pascal plays her virtual psychiatrist, something very familiar post pandemic. British director, Simon Pittman, was brought in to oversee the project. Pablo del Campo leads the team, which is made up of Argentine, Spanish, English and North American talents.