Every Brilliant Thing

About the show

Every Brilliant Thing opens with the unnamed "Narrator" at age seven who, when their mother attempts suicide, begins a list of things worth living for. As the play proceeds, the list lengthens, through Narrator's college years, marriage, and a bout of depression. Before each performance, the actor playing Narrator casts audience members. Daniel Radcliffe, who performed the play's Broadway premiere (2026), described two levels of audience engagement. During the first, "a light lift", some audience members are handed a card with a number and text. When Narrator calls out a number, the member with that card shouts the name of the corresponding list entry—for example, rollercoasters, Super Mario, or people falling over. The second level, "the heavy lifts," involves five people playing "very significant roles...They are people that do not know that they will be doing that when they come into the theater that night. And I have to try and suss out who I would like to use and then if they would like to be used. Generally speaking, people are fairly amenable to it, but we do get some absolute hard nos from people sometimes." Radcliffe would tell participants that they do not have to be funny or clever, though those would be a bonus. The only thing they should do is be kind. "And if you're kind, the show flies." A key audience role is Mrs. Patterson, a school guidance counselor. The woman playing her removes her sock to use as a sock puppet as a way of communicating with the young Narrator, then returns at the end to soothe the now despondent adult. These character roles, played ad lib, unfold differently at each performance.