Notes from a Composer

This Sunday we experienced Daniel Radcliffe’s final performance in Every Brilliant Thing. This play is a singular Broadway experience, as the audience is enlisted to engage with the only regular cast member to bring the performance to life. As such it was particularly fun and exciting; and also surprisingly moving.

The play has been performed all over the world, including in NYC, with many actors, famous and not, playing the lead for over a decade. But this is its first run on Broadway. Mariska Hargitay will take over the part Daniel Radcliffe for which has just received his second Tony nomination.

The brilliant things of “Every Brilliant Thing” are a list a young child makes to cheer up their (presumably bipolar) mother after her first suicide attempt. Number 1 on a list started by a seven year old is “ice cream”. Over the years more and more items are added to the list. Some of these can be seen posted on the Hudson Theatre’s doors.

Broadway theater goers line up early to get into the theaters nowadays. But for “Every Brilliant Thing” ticket holders thronged even earlier than for the rest of Times Square’s offerings. Word has gotten around that the 30 minutes before the play starts are unlike what happens in any other theater.

A company of one, officially. But in reality the whole audience becomes part of the “company”, in ways big and small.

And Daniel Radcliffe is also crucially aided by assistant directors, especially in the choosing of those audience members that will take on the ways that are big.

Handwritten scraps of paper with examples of the brilliant things hang above theater goers in the lobby.

So what exactly is the audience enlisted to do? Several dozen are given a particular brilliant thing to shout out when Radcliffe calls out its number. Directional microphones in the house amplify those voices when that brilliant thing is proclaimed. One thing (#10 000) is called out by the whole audience. I won’t spoil what it is, only to say it is something the character definitely wrote as an adult.

Around 10 (give or take) audience members are chosen (with their consent) to actually play the part of important people in the character’s life. Not the troubled mother – we hear about her, but never see her portrayed. But everyone from a school librarian to the character’s father – in short cameo scenes or numerous crucial moments across the whole play.

Here is a shot of Daniel Radcliffe during those particular 30 minutes before the show starts, conferring with an assistant director as they scope out the incomig crowd to choose their co-stars for today’s performance.