Daniel Radcliffe Loves Audience Participation

"It's early afternoon in a midtown rehearsal room, Daniel Radcliffe is in need of a volunteer from his audience, and I'm the only person around who hasn't seen the play before. "Would you mind playing a lecturer?" he says as he approaches me. "You just really look like him." I'm brought to the center of the room, handed a copy of The Sorrows of Young Werther, and told to extemporize"

"He interrupts me a few times in character; he's playing an eager college student trying to process the book's depiction of depression and suicide. Soon, Radcliffe's character, known only as "performer" in the script, races out of the lecture with new ideas on his mind and gently escorts me back to the seat in time for the transition to the next beat. He and his directors, Duncan Macmillan and Jeremy Herrin, pause the rehearsal and go over a few notes -"

A midtown rehearsal shows Daniel Radcliffe engaging directly with audience volunteers, using a prop copy of The Sorrows of Young Werther to prompt improvised interaction. Radcliffe performs a student character grappling with the book's depiction of depression and suicide, then moves the participant back as the scene shifts. Directors Duncan Macmillan and Jeremy Herrin pause for notes on language and stage business while Radcliffe refines quick descriptions for identifying audience volunteers. Audience interaction is central to Every Brilliant Thing, created by Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe, which follows a man processing his mother's attempted suicide and his own depression. The play originated at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2014, was revived on the West End, and will be brought to Broadway by Radcliffe.

Read at Vulture