Andrew Shi

Don’t expect a passive viewing experience—audience participation is crucial to this weekend’s production of “Every Brilliant Thing,” which follows an unnamed narrator through their upbringing by a mother with severe depression and suicidal ideations.

“The list began after her first attempt. A list of everything brilliant about the world. Everything worth living for. Number one: ice cream,” the play begins, its narrator seven years old at the time.

Beyond the unpredictability of a typical live theater production, each performance of “Every Brilliant Thing” is one-of-a-kind, as a new narrator performs the one-person show each night. In their respective performances, Michael Bagnoli ’26, Rithmaka Karunadhara ’26, Franceska Drejaj ’27 and Eve Foley ’28 each provide a new interpretation of the story, taking the audience on a unique journey with each show.

“We’re all very different. We all approach the story with a different point of view, obviously, personally, but also, I think our narrators are kind of different,” Foley said. “The narrator relies on the comedic aspect in all of the productions, but I think we all do it very differently. You have to figure out how you want to tell this story, and we’ve all made our own decisions as to who our narrator is.”

From Karunadhara’s Sri Lankan narrator to Foley’s valley girl twang, each narrator’s distinct identity uncovers a universal human truth—and leads to an entirely distinct viewing experience each night.

“The fact that [the narrators] are all different makes a statement that the process of finding joy and hope is universally available to everybody,” assistant director Zach Green ’28 said.

As the narrative progresses, grounded by a list of brilliant things, audience members are implicated in the story and called onstage to perform various roles in controlled improvisation. For example, during Thursday night’s performance, Moana Gregori ’26 played Sam, the narrator’s spouse, which spurred a deeper interaction with the subject matter of the play.

“It made it feel like we were all a little bit a part of the play and not just there to turn off our brain for a night but really to engage deeply with what was going on,” Gregori said.

In “Every Brilliant Thing,” humor coexists alongside heavier themes of mental health, suffering and healing.

“This is the narrator coping with all of the difficult things that are happening by trying to remind him or herself [of] the beautiful things to read this beauty in the world that’s otherwise difficult to see,” Green said.

Through months of rehearsal, the four actors became deeply immersed in character study, learning the ins and outs of the story.

“It’s been an emotionally interesting thing to work through this play…. I think we’ve really fleshed out what this story actually is, and the audience doesn’t see that because they’re seeing what this narrator has decided to present,” Foley said.

Each actor uniquely embodied the protagonist’s role by bringing their personal experience to their performance.

“It was a very personal experience getting to work with all of the actors and personalize the show for them but also fit that to what the original vision and core emotion of the show was,” Green said.

While “Every Brilliant Thing” grapples with intense subject matter through a comedic approach, the play also forces audience members to confront what is left unsaid.

“I want [audience members] to leave as more compassionate people. I think this might not be the most direct or most obvious intention of the play, but you really don’t know what’s going on in the lives of other people, and you don’t know what people have been through,” Foley said.

At the center of the show lies a deeply human sense of connection and an understanding that small moments and interactions shape the way we experience the world.

“The narrator goes through so much, reveals part of it, keeps a lot of it implicit or unsaid and throughout the whole thing, there’s this sense of all-pervasive joy and hope,” Green said. “Every time that’s lost, he or she returns to it, through the list or through interacting with the audience as representative of a community effort. I want people to walk away feeling this collective joy.”

“Every Brilliant Thing” opened on Thursday night and will continue with an evening performance on Friday at 7:30 p.m., a Saturday matinee at 2 p.m. and a closing performance on Saturday at 7 p.m.

Eve Foley is a member of The Bowdoin Orient.