From the time when my parents started dragging me to in-person theater as a young child, I knew that I was walking through a portal to visit a made-up magical world where things were simply not the same. But also, I was just a child. Sometimes my patient parents had to deal with me talking back to the cast, as I did at Godspell. Sometimes they had to deal with me falling asleep, because a dark room with gently spoken lines felt like nap time to me.
But this time I am dragging my now 80-something mother to a dress rehearsal for “Every Brilliant Thing” (by Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe) at the Cookeville Performing Arts Center (CPAC), and I had no idea how wide the portal could be opened. “Every Brilliant Thing” is far too intense and emotional and fun for anyone to fall asleep, but you better believe that you might see the crowd talking during the show.
That’s right, this is not your normal night at the theater, as the proverbial “fourth wall” has fully fallen. The audience members are the actors, and the actor is a nameless narrator with so much to say. If you have been to CPAC Backstage show before, you now intimate it can feel, but I promise that with this show, they take all that to the next level.
A night (or afternoon) out that is this interactive and immersive has enough to recommend it, simply for the ways that it is gently subversive with the format alone. No two shows of the eight-show run will be the same, and the imperfection of audience members becoming impromptu actors will be as awkward as it is vulnerable as it is beautiful.
But add to all this the simple premise of the show: we are making a collaborative list of “Every Brilliant Thing” about being alive. Yes, it is as sweet and silly as it sounds, but the reasons we are making this list are quite serious. When the play begins, we learn that the nameless narrator almost lost his mother to death by suicide. Every aspect of this performance is community medicine. Every word spoken is part of the medicine and a gift to our collective mental health. This is theater as a living art as life-affirming care.
If that all sounds too triggering or weird, I promise you that it isn’t. When I was invited into the show, the adrenaline rocked me out of my seat and into an uncertain moment, but it felt amazing. The narrator is really going through it, and now, I was going through it with him.
For Cookeville’s version of this widely acclaimed one-man show, two actors will alternate days as the narrator. The show that I attended featured Michael Evanichko, who already blew my mind late last year in The Kitchen at the Wesley Foundation. Interacting with him when I realized that I was part of the show felt surprisingly natural and only a little wonky. I feel like I have to go back to attend again on a day that Patrick Mannle is acting, plus there are so many aspects of the show that I simply want to experience with a different crowd.
But it’s not just the play that involves everyone and everything, the entire venue has been configured and reimagined in such a fashion as to make every space and place, from a trip to the bathroom or to the bar, into a truly enlightening experience. Even though there is technically only one person named in the program as a performer per se, it’s clear that the production staff are all part of the show too. This includes the more than capable director Jennifer Williams, and the producer of all official CPAC events, Rachel Wingo. Attending this show is the theatrical equivalent of touring a chocolate factory where the chocolate is being made, and you get to eat the chocolate.
As serious as some of the topics addressed are, the play is full of joy and whimsy. Everyone should making lists like the one upon which the play is based. Because life is filled with brilliant things, and Cookeville’s vibrant theater community has always been on my list of things to be thankful for, one of the things that makes life worth living.
Local teacher, DJ, and poet, Andrew William Smith has been reviewing local theater in Cookeville for almost 20 years.
Content warning for discussion of suicide and self-harm.
Shows are on February 14, 15, 18, 20, 21, and 22 at 7pm as well February 16 and 22 at 2pm at the Cookeville Performing Arts Center at 10 East Broad Street.
Tickets available at the door when a show is not sold out or in advance online here:
Cookeville Performing Arts Center Tickets
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