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Hangin' with the Company of THE CHILDREN on Opening Night!
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Nov 3, 2022
Manhattan Theatre Club's American premiere of The Royal Court Theatre's production of The Children, the new play by Olivier Award winner Lucy Kirkwood (Chimerica), directed by James MacDonald (Top Girls at MTC), opened just last night, December 12, at MTC's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street).
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
0:02
Manhattan Theatre Club presents the New York premiere of Olivier Award winning playwright Lucy Kirkwood's new play, The Children
0:10
And we're here on opening night to celebrate with the company. Welcome to Broadway with the Children. It is opening night. How do you all feel tonight
0:17
I feel great. It's fantastic. Yeah, it went well, I think. Yeah, terrific
0:22
It was a lovely performance. You know, it was a lovely audience
0:27
It was relaxed, wasn't it? Because we've been doing it for about three weeks, the previews
0:32
And it's not like in England when the press nights are very scary
0:39
But this was just come on the same night. But that's not the same here
0:44
So we just had a lovely evening together. Just a celebration. So it was good
0:49
This is such a beautiful play. Beautifully cast, beautifully directed. What have you enjoyed the most about bringing your play to Broadway
0:57
It's been really thrilling to see it with a different audience, and I think the play has got a lot of relevance for us at home
1:02
but I think in terms of what's happening in your culture right now, it feels like people are finding particular relevance
1:07
in certain aspects of the play, and that's been really thrilling to find people hearing different things
1:11
and picking up on different things, and different rhythms of the play that the cast have been learning
1:16
and leaning into, and it's such a beautiful theatre, so playing that space has been a real privilege
1:22
It must have been really great for you. You know, everybody thought it was just going to be in London
1:26
Then you come to New York to Broadway now, and you've been able to look at it through fresh eyes all over again
1:32
What that's meant to you. Yeah, it's been really, really wonderful. It's lovely when, you know, it takes you a long time to make a piece of work
1:39
And it's so lovely when you get a second life, but especially a second life in a different culture
1:43
where you get to share it with a broader audience and see what they find in it
1:47
This is such a beautiful play because it about a big story yet it so personal that it all told through the three of you How clever is that Well Lucy brilliant like that because you know she not dictating about her subject or anything
2:02
You know, it's basically about people in their lives who happen to be nuclear physicists
2:07
and feel very passionately about it, you know. Yes, you think it's a domestic situation to begin with
2:15
but then it just grows and grows. Oh, yes. Yeah, it grows and grows
2:19
And she draws the audience in, you know, just, and then, and you can feel the audience just sort of going with it
2:26
And then they're completely spellbound by the play. It's about everyone's life, you know, in the audience they can relate to any aspect of this play
2:35
You know, that's the point. The human emotions are there. So if you would explain what your play is about to an audience, how do you explain it
2:42
I think the play is about three people trying to grow up
2:46
and accept their responsibility for the world around them and deal with their desires and their lusts and their loves
2:54
and their appetites at the same time. And that's something I think we all wrestle with on a daily basis
2:59
I certainly do. When you took your bow tonight back on Broadway, do you remember what you were thinking
3:05
Thank God tonight's over. Now we can just enjoy the run without the pressure
3:10
we'll just be out there for every audience, every different audience every night
3:14
and not being judged in the sense of like an opening night, you know
3:18
So that was a relief. But it was great. It was very gratifying because you don't know
3:24
because at the end you don't know the silence at the end
3:29
And then you get the reaction and then you realise how much people have enjoyed it
3:35
It was wonderful tonight, wasn't it? It was, yes. It was very good. and it was just beautiful
3:41
Yes, sometimes because of what the play is about, sometimes the silences, they're not alarming
3:47
they're very good because you realise people are thinking about things
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