EVERY BRILLIANT THING Will Come to the New Vic Theatre
Nicholas Mongiardo-Cooper stars in Duncan Macmillan's interactive show, directed by Jenny Sullivan in Santa Barbara
Ensemble Theatre Company of Santa Barbara will continue its 47th “Truth and Illusion” season " with the current smash hit Broadway stage experience, EVERY BRILLIANT THING, written by Duncan MacMillan with Jonny Donahoe, directed by Jenny Sullivan and starring Nicholas Mongiardo-Cooper. EVERY BRILLIANT THING will be performed in the round and will begin previews on Wednesday, June 3; will open on Saturday, June 6 at 8pm (press opening); and run through Sunday, June 21 at the New Vic Theatre, 33 Victoria Street in Santa Barbara.
What makes life worth living? A child starts a list of every brilliant thing in the world, hoping to help their mother through depression. As the list grows - ice cream, the color yellow, the sound of laughter - the audience is invited on a heartwarming, interactive journey through life's highs and lows, discovering joy in the simplest things.
"There may be no more powerful theatrical experience right now than EVERY BRILLIANT THING - a single performer, an audience invited to play along, and a list of reasons to keep going," comments Scott Devine, ETC's executive artistic director. "It's funny, brave, and profoundly human - a list that ranges from Christopher Walken's voice to the smell of old books to inappropriately timed ABBA songs and somehow reminds us that the smallest things are often what hold us together. In a season exploring truth and illusion, few stories feel more truthful, or more necessary, than this one."
ETC is committed to ensuring that transformative theatrical experiences remain accessible to all Santa Barbara community members through its “Community Pay-What-You-Can Program.” The Pay-What-You-Can performance for EVERY BRILLIANT THING will be Wednesday, June 3 at 7:30pm.
ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM AND CAST
Jenny Sullivan (Director) is an award-winning theater and film director, actor, writer and producer. Favorite directing gigs at: The Wallis Annenberg Theatre, Geffen Playhouse, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, The Acorn and Lucille Lortel Theaters Off-Broadway, Long Wharf Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Laguna Playhouse, Pasadena Playhouse and Rubicon Theatre. Jenny began directing for ETC in 2005! In 2025, Justice was her 15th production! Other ETC productions include: The Children; Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical; Sleuth; The Legend of Georgia McBride; I Am My Own Wife (Indy Award); Baby Doll; Good People; Tea at Five; The Year of Magical Thinking; The Lion in Winter (Indy Award); The Mystery of Irma Vep (Indy Award); The Clean House (Indy Award); The Memory of Water; and Dublin Carol (Indy Award). Other Santa Barbara productions include Marat/Sade, The Way We Live Now: Theatre for Our Lives in This Crisis Called AIDS (Center Stage Theatre) and Listen for Wings (Access Theatre); Nancy Nufer's Food Confessions; Mother Earth/Father Sky; and The Shadow Box, all played at The Lobero Theatre. Jenny was a founding member of Santa Barbara's “The Mime Caravan,” the creators of the annual Summer Solstice Celebration. Films: Access All Areas and The Next Best Thing (in which she had the good fortune to direct her father Barry). Her film I Know Catherine, The Log Lady is currently being screened across the country. Jenny is most proud of the world premiere of her play J for J starring Jenny, Jeff Kober and the late great John Ritter.
Duncan MacMillan (Playwright) is a writer and director for theatre, television and film. Theatre includes: Lungs; People, Places and Things; Every Brilliant Thing; The Seagull (adapt. Chekhov, with Thomas Ostermeier); Rosmersholm (adapt. Henrik Ibsen); 1984(adapt. George Orwell, co-written with Robert Icke); City Of Glass (adapt. Paul Auster) and 2071 (co-written with Chris Rapley); The Forbidden Zone; Wunschloses Unglück (adapt. Peter Handke); Reise Durch die Nacht (adapt. Friederike Mayröcker) and the English language version of Thomas Ostermeier's An Enemy Of The People (adapt. Henrik Ibsen, Duke of York's Theatre, West End). Duncan directed the ten-year anniversary remount of his play Every Brilliant Thing at the Edinburgh Festival, and co-directed (with Jeremy Herrin) the West End transfer @SohoPlace for Second Half Productions, featuring five different performers. He also co-directed 1984 (with Robert Icke) for Headlong, which ran in the West End three times after two UK tours and tours of the US and Australia and transferred to the Hudson Theater, Broadway. Other directing includes the US premiere of Mike Bartlett's Contractions (Studio Theatre, Washington DC), and the world premiere of Simon Vinnicombe's Cradle Me (Finborough Theatre).His work has been performed throughout the world, including The National Theatre, the Old Vic, the Royal Court, Almeida, Barbican, St Ann's Warehouse, Melbourne Theatre Company, Berliner Ensemble, Hamburg Schauspielhaus, Schauspielhaus Köln, Burgtheater Wien, Vesturport, Kansallisteatteri, Nationaltheatret Oslo and in the repertory of the Schaubühne Berlin, as well as the Edinburgh Festival, the Manchester International Festival, Salzburg Festival, Festival d'Avignon and Theatertreffen, in the West End and on Broadway. His screen work has appeared on the BBC, HBO, Netflix and at the Berlin and London Film Festivals. Reise Durch die Nacht was awarded the Nestroy Preis for Best German Language Production. Both 1984 and People, Places and Things were nominated for Best New Play at the Olivier Awards, and Rosmersholm was nominated for Best Revival. He won Best Director (with Robert Icke) at the UK Theatre awards and the Liverpool Arts Awards, and the production also received nominations at the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Tony Awards.
Jonny Donahoe (Creative Consultant) is a comedian, writer and performer. He is the co-creator and original performer of Every Brilliant Thing, which has now played in over seventy countries across six continents. He has also written and performed for over ten years with his touring comedy group “Jonny & The Baptists.” They have performed their shows at the Royal National Theatre, Manchester Royal Exchange, Barrow Street Theatre, New York, Soho Theatre, Downstage Theatre Wellington, Liverpool Everyman and Battersea Arts Centre amongst many others. Jonny was nominated for a Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, and an Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Every Brilliant Thing. “Jonny and the Baptists” have been nominated for a Chortle Award, Hackney Empire New Act of the Year and the Musical Comedy Awards. He won a BBC Audio Drama Award for his work on Sound Heap (Max Fun/Auddy). Other plays include Anna/Anastasia (Oran Mor/Traverse/APA), 30 Christmases, (New Diorama, London/ OFS, Oxford), and Forgiveness (UK & International Tour). Short plays include The Sound Ours Hearts Made (Trafalgar Studios/Paines Plough) and There Was an Old Woman (Soho Theatre). He has appeared regularly on “The Now Show,” “Sketchorama,” “Fresh from the Fringe,” and “Infinite Monkey Cage” (all BBC Radio 4), and “Live from TV Centre” (BBC TV/Battersea Arts Centre), among many others. His performance in Every Brilliant Thing was recorded at Barrow Street Theatre by World of Wonder and released as a special on HBO.
EVERY BRILLIANT THING features Nicholas Mongiardo-Cooper who has dedicated his life to storytelling in character. Born into a family of performers, gathering to share music and art was an essential part of growing up. Ensconced in layered, deep and sometimes broad character work for most of his career. He has appeared Off-Broadway in Rothschild & Sons, Lonesome Traveler, and Julius Caesar. Regionally he has been seen in Sweeney Todd, Fiddler On The Roof (La Mirada), A Gentleman's Guide To Love and Murder, Harvey (Laguna) A Wicked Soul In Cherry Hill (Geffen), Waitress (Moonlight),The Tempest (Alabama Shakespeare), The Play That Goes Wrong, Sherlock Holmes' Last Adventure (Portland Stage) Once (Geva), Rounding Third (FST), House of Dreams (SDRep), Oliver!, Matilda (5Star) Sweeney Todd, Once, Shakespeare In Love (South Coast Rep) King Lear (Rubicon), Side Show (La Jolla), Of Mice And Men, Laughter on the 23rdFloor, Sherlock Holmes, Side By Side By Sondheim, and Words By (North Coast Rep). He's appeared on television in “Law & Order: SVU” (NBC) “Dying For Sex” (F/X) “Ghosts” (CBS) “The Connors” (ABC) “Fairly Oddparents” (Paramount+) “Danger Force” (nickelodeon) “Fuller House” (Netflix) “Superstore” (NBC) “Casual” (Hulu) and in the films: Let It Stay Here, Diamond Bar, Goodbye Canarsie, 0s & 1s and the upcoming Sin & Tonic. He can also be seen singing “Oh What A Beautiful Morning” among the snow-capped mountains in a Coors Light commercial. He has performed in concert at the historic Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara along with his fellow “Lonesome Travelers”. “The Lonesome Travelers in Concert” can be heard on all streaming platforms.
Our “brilliant” team of designers includes: Fred Kinney (Scenic, and Costume Design); Jared Sayeg (Lighting Design); Randy Tico (Sound Design); Casting by Michael Donovan Casting, Michael Donovan, CSA & Richie Ferris, CSA; Dramaturgy by Ward LeHardy. The Production Stage Manager is Kristal Georgopoulos.
Producers for EVERY BRILLIANT THING include Visionary Producers Dana White, Geof and Laura Wyatt; Executive Producers are the Zegar Family Foundation; Supporting Producers are Deborah and Peter Bertling, Anne and David Gersh, Deb and Ken Pontifex, Helene Segal and George Konstantinow, Sheila M. Stone.
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