Go Inside Opening Night of ALL MY SONS, with Bening, Letts & More!

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

Roundabout Theater Company continues their stellar season with a stunning new production of the Arthur Miller classic, All My Sons

Under the direction of Jack O'Brien, it welcomes back to the New York stage, Annette Benning

Tracy Letts and Benjamin Walker, and I caught up with all of them on opening night

just minutes after the curtain rang down. What's made it so special this time around with working on this play coming back to the state

I think it's the group. It's always, that's why we do theaters because we want to work together in such a close, intimate way, and with Tracy Letts and Ben Walker and the entire company

We are very much there for each other, and that's the joy of it. And this incredible play, it's a beautiful, beautiful play

And I just feel very grateful and lucky that I got to do it, and with Jack O'Brien

It's, every night is different. Every night it changes and grows, and that's the real joy of it

What's it like being in the rehearsal room with Jack O'Brien, one of the finest directors we have

Well, he's an enthusiast, and he is incredibly articulate about the play

He had worked on the play. He had done it before in the 80s for television with James Whitmore

Michael Lernet, Joan Allen, Jokovann. So he knew the play very well

But he is incredibly articulate and knows when to say something, knows when not to say something

And he really creates an atmosphere where everyone feels very open and supported and we could talk about everything So it was really helpful All my sons is a challenge

We knew that going into it, that it was going to be a mountain to climb

And we're not done working, but it just feels good to be at this particular plateau

What's made this so special for you? Well, ultimately, you come back to the play

It's a great, important, and beautifully written drama. It's a, and the audience is having an experience at every performance

And so that ultimately, I mean, you just can't ask for anything better than that in the theater

I mean, what you always carry away from any experience like this, the people you're working with

and it's just a sterling bunch of people not only on stage but off as well

It's a great bunch, so it's been a good time so far. It's an excruciating play, and this group of actors makes it, dare I say, pleasant

you know, that we have each other's support and professionalism, and that, in a nutshell, is my favorite part

that we feel like a real ensemble and a real family. You all roll up your sleeves together and put this play together

Let's get our hands dirty. We think we know, but do we? How deeply can we go into the density of what Miller wrote

And the way we rehearsed it and the way we worked on it

has made that possible. So we were lucky to have it. I love the most about Chris Keller What a beautifully complex man Well one thing I share with Chris is that I believe in the better nature of people

That we can do our best for each other, and we should at least try

This is the kind of work that made me want to be an actor, is to be in this kind of play with these kinds of actors and this kind of ensemble

So it's a dream come true. What's made this so special for you? A lot of things. I think telling this story at this time, it feels important

It makes me feel like my job is really doing something. It feels worthwhile

And then to be with these actors, these are actors that I remember going and lining up to get a rush ticket to see Tracy Lutzen, who's afraid of Virginia Woolf when I was in school

You know, to know these people not only as actors that I've watched and admired forever

but to know them as collaborators, as partners, to know them as friends is just unbelievable

Actually, like, I'm about to get married in about a week. And, hey, so, like, I was telling my fiancé the other day, it was like, I could never dream this big

I truly couldn't. There's really no words for it, especially for an actor like me

I've had a very short career. But to be under the wing of all these legends has been both affirmation for me and completely humbling

I couldn't ask for more, truly. The writing and the characters are so rich, and you just get to inhabit these stories that are just amazing and iconic

And doing this play right now that is still what written in the 1940s but it still so shockingly relevant and asking us to look at our relationships outside of our own outside of our personal relationships and look at the world at large and how we can contribute to the human race

It's amazing. It's heartbreaking that it's still so relevant that Arthur back in the 1940s was saying

that we as a society often choose profit over people, and here we are still sort of having

that same conversation. in the room with director Jack O'Brien. What has that been like

He's like a philosopher. It's almost like you're in an orchestra, and he's conducting you

And it's a cool thing about our production is that everybody brings something different to it

And so it's wonderful to be with him and have him just, like, talk to you about theater

and his philosophies about theater, which, if you can read his book, read his book, because it's like being in a room with him every day, these just amazing philosophies of theater

I play Lydia Luby. She is one of the neighbors. And what I love about her is she's a mom, and I'm a mom

So I really relate to her. I don't have three kids, but I have one, but it feels like I have one, and I have a job, and that's hard

I love what you wear, like, when you saw yourself made up in, like, the makeup beer for the first time

with the overalls and everything else in this world, what was it like for you? Oh, it was a treat

I mean, I felt like my grandmother, honestly, you know, because I'm from Ohio, and she's from Ohio, and I felt just like her

I felt really special. And my character makes her own clothes, so I was really proud of myself. itself

It's an amazing company, I mean, and that Tracy, Ben, right, Francesca, right down the line

I mean, it's, it would be hard to imagine a better cast

And finally, when you took your bow tonight, back on Broadway, do you remember what you were thinking

I was thinking how wonderful it was to look at it so many people standing up, seeing so moved and jubilant, and that's what you want