Interview: Director Michelle Bossy of THE PETERSON SHOW world premiere by Echo Theatre Company

The Echo Theater Company presents the world premiere of The Peterson Show written by Emmy-nominated playwright Janine Nabers and directed by Michelle Bossy. It follows five former child stars who reunite as the legacy of their beloved television father collapses into scandal. With cameras swarming outside and decades of unresolved history inside, they confront old rivalries, buried secrets and the complicated bonds forged while growing up on America’s favorite sitcom. It raises a difficult question: What happens to a family when the person who held it together becomes the one who tears it apart?

I spoke with the director Michelle Bossy about her decision to direct the play, the relationships between the characters, and how the play has evolved during rehearsals. Here’s what she had to say:

Director Michelle Bossy
Photo by Diana King

What was your immediate reaction when you first read Janine Nabers’ The Peterson Show, and what made you want to direct it?
About seven years ago, Janine told me she had an idea to write a play about the adult children who had acted on a sitcom like The Cosby Show or Fresh Prince and I told her you need to write that immediately. Besides the fact that Janine has an incredibly sharp, funny, singular voice, I love her as a human being and wanted to be the one to bring her vision to life. We are very close personally; we understand some things about the play and each other that help form the spine of this play. This also comes with the shorthand of being collaborators for so many years.
 
The play is described as both “hilarious and heartbreaking.” How did you approach balancing those two tones without allowing one to overwhelm the other?
We are definitely walking the line as a company between the two tones, but it’s baked into the writing. The play turns on you. You can be howling with laughter and then smacked with truth, or feeling the depths of emotion and then taken out with the absurdity of the moment. Just as in life, the play is riding a great emotional wave and I think the whole team is doing a wonderful balancing act making that happen.

Devere Rogers and Tamberla Perry
Photo by Meghan McEnery
 

At the center of the play is a beloved television father whose legacy collapses into scandal. What interested you most about exploring the complicated relationship between cultural nostalgia, harm, and accountability?
This is a question our entire culture is reckoning with right now. How do you separate the art from the artist? Can we still enjoy things even though we know that artists are flawed and human, or sometimes, reprehensible? A distinction we each make for ourselves with what our level of tolerance is. There’s a great line in the play where a character says erasing this man would be erasing a cultural legacy. There’s no denying that a lot of these icons in Black television paved the way for where we are now in media for People of Color . I love that the play is asking the questions but doesn’t give tidy answers to them.
 
What have you discovered about the humor in the play during rehearsals that you perhaps didn't see when you first read the script?
There’s a lot of comedy in this play and I think a lot of that is on the page, and Janine gave us so much permission with her writing. I don’t think I realized what a farce it was or how far we could go until we stood up after-table work. The actors are just incredible in this show and have added so much nuance and physicality to the play. We’ve been working on this play for a long time in development and I’m so happy that we could bring a lot of these artists along for the ride with us.

Tamberla Perry, Kelly McCreary, Kristen Ariza
Photo by Michelle Bossy

How do you create an environment in rehearsal where actors can explore difficult material involving family, betrayal and accountability while still maintaining trust and playfulness?
I love this question! I actually recently took a class on intimacy coordination, and we brought in a really terrific advisor named Meghan Prahl, who taught my class, who advised us on the show. I wanted to make sure that all of the actors were safe and in being safe, we could go to deep scary places. I think the play is ultimately saying that none of the characters are unscathed by the toxic environment they grow up in.

Top Row: Kristen Ariza, Kelly McCreary,
Tamberla Perry and Deanna Reed-Foster
Bottom Row: Devere Rogers,
Journee Rose, John Clarence Stewart,
and playwright Janine Nabers

Featured in the ensemble cast are actors with a lot of television and theatrical experience, including Kelly McCreary (Grey’s Anatomy), Tamberla Perry (Brilliant Minds, Clydes at the Mark Taper Forum) and John Clarence Stewart (Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, Brilliant Minds, P-Valley), with Kristen Ariza (The Fosters, StartUp), Deanna Reed-Foster (The Vince Staples Show, The First Deep Breath at the Geffen), Devere Rogers (Broadway’s Chicken & Biscuits, Gloria at the Echo) and Journee Rose (Abbott Elementary). What was particularly exciting about assembling this ensemble, and what did you see in these actors that made you believe they belonged together as this complicated family?
This cast is an embarrassment of riches! They are gorgeous, generous, talented and kind. It’s really one of my favorite rehearsal rooms. They are also champions of one another. So Janine and I believed they could create a community with one another, root for each other, but also have a trust where we could go to hard places and support each other.

Kristen Ariza, Kelly McCreary, Tamberla Perry,
Deanna Reed-Foster, Devere Rogers,
Journee Rose, John Clarence Stewart

Since the play’s characters were raised together as a fictional television family, how did you and the actors explore the difference between the family they performed for the cameras and the relationships they developed behind the scenes? And what about their own extensive television background added to the process?
What’s so fun is we’ve talked a lot about our own family dynamics, how things play out in our real lives and how they work in the play as well. We all agree that there are roles you are assigned in a family and then the role that you want. The actors are just so sharp and inventive. And we have discussed how their work in television would inform their characters, and I think that does come through in the performances.
 
The premise inevitably evokes real conversations about disgraced television figures and the complicated legacies of beloved entertainers. How did you make sure the production felt rooted in its own fictional world rather than simply commenting on current headlines?
It definitely is rooted in its own world. Janine references several different shows: Sister, Sister; Family Matters; The Cosby Show; Martin; Fresh Prince… but they are a launching point to create a show in the world of the play.

Deanna Reed-Foster
Photo by Meghan McEnery

What do you think the play has to say about the particular power dynamics that exist when children are turned into performers and commodities by the entertainment industry?
There was this great OpEd in the Times a few weeks ago by Allison Pill, right after Hayden Panettiere died. I sent it to the cast. I think the play is saying that children on television shows are always vulnerable. Janine is definitely tapping into something going on in the world right this moment.
 
The Echo Theater Company has a long history of championing adventurous new work in Los Angeles. What makes the Echo the right home for The Peterson Show?
Janine developed the play in the Echo Theater Company’s writer’s group, so it feels homegrown. We did a reading several years ago here. I applaud the Echo for producing this play; many other theater companies were afraid of the subject matter.

Devere Rogers and John Clarence Stewart
Photo by Meghan McEnery

What do you hope audiences will be laughing about on their way out of the theater—and what do you hope they will still be thinking about the next morning?
I hope audiences will laugh about the absurdity of the situations and these characters, but also feel deep empathy for them. I hope that they will be thinking about power dynamics they are a part of and their own experiences in family systems. And that they’re still thinking about the world that Janine created for them.
 
If you could leave audiences with one question after seeing The Peterson Show, what would you want that question to be?
I think the question is what are the assumptions and conclusions I’ve come to in my own life, and are there other ways to look at them, other meanings or points of view that I haven’t considered?

Thanks so much!
Thank you.

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