The EVERY BRILLIANT THING Audience Improv That ‘Shook Everyone,’ Even Daniel Radcliffe ‘Had to Take a Beat’
BroadwayWorld learned of a particularly special moment that recently happened at Broadway’s Every Brilliant Thing.
Duncan MacMillan’s Every Brilliant Thing wouldn’t be complete without its audience — and each night proves to be a completely different experience.
Daniel Radcliffe, Tony-nominated for his performance in the one-person play, picks and chooses a select few at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre every night who help him tell the story of a person coming to terms with his past and reflecting on the beauty he’s seen along the way.
One of the roles integral in the main character’s story is Mrs. Patterson, a school librarian who attempts to comfort the narrator’s younger self during a particularly tough time in their childhood.
“We had a stellar Mrs. P a few weeks back,” production stage manager Jhanaë K-C Bonnick exclusively tells BroadwayWorld. “We’ve had a lot of really special people, but this woman was incredible. We keep talking about her, actually. And what was so amazing about her was how in the scene she was. She was really following and really with him.”
Bonnick says she memorized what the audience member added to the scene, which took place toward the end of the show.
“They were getting to the end of the scene, and she said, ‘Can I say one more thing?’ And she’d been so wonderful that Dan said yes,” Bonnick says. “And she said, ‘The way that you feel now — you feel terrible, you feel crummy — that is hard, but it’s better than feeling nothing. That is what it means to be alive.’”
The moment “really shook everyone,” Bonnick says. “Dan and the whole audience really had to take a beat with it to hear that and feel that. And she brought the house down. Everyone was like, ‘Wow.’ Pain is a part of living, and you’ll get through it. Being alive is the key. It was really incredible.”
After the show, the Every Brilliant Thing creative team learned the audience member is an architect. “She was a regular woman visiting with her daughter,” says Bonnick. “Sometimes, when something like that happens, after the show, you find out [they’re] a therapist or a teacher or something. But no, she’s just a mom.”
Bonnick says the moment was “so poignant,” adding that Radcliffe “really did just have to pause and have that moment to take it in for himself and for the audience.”
“The whole room just took a beat,” she adds.
There have been other special moments that have happened at Every Brilliant Thing since the show officially opened on March 12.
“The other day, the two people who hold the keyboard [in one of the show’s scenes] were together, and they kissed,” says Bonnick, adding that her favorite part of each evening is debriefing with the creative team and Radcliffe after each show to talk about the special things that occurred during the performance.
“We all collect nuggets from [the] pre-show through the end of the show to then talk to each other about,” she says. “We sit on stage after the show, and before Dan leaves, he’ll come out, and we’ll kind of decompress, like: ‘Okay, wow, that one was crazy!’”
Radcliffe will play his final performance in Every Brilliant Thing on Sunday, May 24, before Mariska Hargitay joins the production for a limited engagement beginning Tuesday, May 26.
Photo Credit: Matthew Murphy
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