Culture | Theatre The Evening Standard's journalism is supported by our readers. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Caissie Levy – the star performer who first brought Elsa to life in Frozen on Broadway – was just settling into a “new phase of life” when she received an offer to return to London’s West End for the first time in more than a decade.
It was early January 2022, and couldn’t have felt more surreal. She had just moved to New Jersey and given birth to her second child, and it was during an early morning feed that she received an unexpected and exciting job offer. “I was giving the baby a bottle at 5am and I got an Instagram message.
I looked at it bleary eyed and it was from Mike,” she said. Mike is British director Michael Longhurst, who had directed her in the musical Caroline, or Change on Broadway the previous year. The message asked her to lead the UK premiere of multiple Tony-winning musical Next to Normal at London’s Donmar Warehouse.
“I thought, ‘This is surreal that I’m getting a job offer like this with a baby and a bottle; I don’t even know what day it is,’” Levy says. “But it was a thrill to get that kind of message. In our line of work you have to fight for everything you get.
” Next to Normal is not a traditional musical. Written by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, it has a rock music score and the subject it deals with is also unusual: it’s about a woman struggling with bipola.
