Jersey Arts Podcast · ArtPride New Jersey

'Every Brilliant Thing' is the Perfect Show for East Lynne Theater Company's New Stage

·37 min·4 clips

Gina Marie Rodriguez opens by welcoming listeners to the Jersey Arts Podcast and framing the show's latest stop in London, England, where *Every Brilliant Thing* is rehearsing across the pond. She moves quickly from the introduction to the play itself. The premise is simple and painful: a son creates a list of things worth living for in an effort to comfort his chronically depressed mother. That list becomes its own act of love, and the episode keeps returning to it as a source of both comedy and feeling. Rodriguez speaks with actor Rowan Tickle and director Deirdre McLaughlin, while executive director Mark David Boberick joins from Eastland's headquarters in Cape May. The tone stays conversational and close to the room. There is some joking about the time difference and the fatigue of rehearsing all day. Then the talk settles into what the play is actually doing. The guests describe the material as treating mental health as a steady presence rather than an odd exception. They talk about the mother-child connection, and also the father-child relationship that sits around it. Rowan Tickle explains that the story is told in retrospect, with enough distance to look back and piece things together. That distance matters because the play is not trying to flatten the mother into a villain or the childhood into a misery story. Instead, it holds onto the fact that a life can contain pain without being defined only by pain. The conversation keeps circling that tension. Tickle says the play keeps raising questions about how these family experiences shape the father, the child, and the person speaking now. He also says the role still feels unfinished and expects that understanding to keep changing as performances continue and audiences respond. That unfinished quality gives the discussion its energy. It does not try to land on a final thesis. It sounds like artists thinking out loud about a piece that is still moving under their feet. Rodriguez lets the guests stretch out, then steps back in to anchor what they have said and move the talk forward. The result is a warm theater conversation that treats the play as something lived with, not just summarized. By the end, the episode makes a clear case for *Every Brilliant Thing* as a comedy with heart that carries grief without losing its light touch.

As heard by us

A warm arts conversation about a play that folds humor into grief.

Every Brilliant Thing is treated as a hope-laced comedy about a son, a chronically depressed mother, and the list he makes to help her keep going.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Want a thoughtful theater chat that stays human, not academic?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Jersey Arts Podcast