THE LIGHTNING THIEF Celebrates an Opening Night Worthy of the Gods!

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

The Lightning Thief, the Percy Jackson musical, has come to Broadway, and we're here on opening night

to celebrate with the company. Till it's back, you're back, Percy. Now go, go away

I never try to do anything. I never mean to hurt anyone

I swear, I swear that I'm a good kid. Yeah, Percy, that's a good one

Of any show I've ever done, I've just trusted that The Lightning Thief, it goes where it needs to go and it does what it needs to do

This show has a life of its own, apart from the producers, apart from the cast, where we just kind of follow it

It truly feels like that. So every curveball made sense looking back

And the fact that we are here tonight just goes to show when you put your heart into a show and let it lead you

So it'll get you there. I've never seen a character like this on Broadway

I mean, she's a heroine. She's smart. She's the first one to fight off a monster

And the relationship between him and I on stage are from kind of like, who are you, to best friends

And that's unusual. Usually you're like, I'm going into the show. And it's like, who do I love in this musical

And it's like, that's not part of it. It's just down to business. And it is so inspiring for me to play

And then to hear the feedback is amazing. I mean, everyone knows, if you've been following our journey, I have been a massive fan of the books ever since I was like 10 years old

And so I've always been in the Riordan universe. I've always been in Percy Jackson's world

And now to be able to play Grover, a character that has helped me so much in the last 13 years, to be able to do that eight times a week, it's really, it's a huge blessing

Well, I think right now the state of the world is kind of scary. And I think we all feel like at a little bit of a state of arrested development

and so YA or Young Adult Fiction and Fantasy is such a great metaphor for us to be able to process big ideas and things that come to terms with them in a way that is a little more palatable And I think that strikes a chord with people

We're asking people of all ages to take agency in their own lives

to fight for the change they want to see. And I think that's a message that speaks to a lot of people right now

When you took your bow tonight, Broadway debut, do you remember what you were thinking? Don't cry

I was just thinking, don't cry. You have to take pictures. your face is going to be puffy if you cry, just stay strong, relish in this moment, be present in

this moment. I'm looking out at my mom, my husband in the audience. It was a very powerful moment

and to just be strong and be a representative for the minority communities that I'm a part of

it was a big moment for me. I've enjoyed very many aspects of it. I've loved putting an adventure

on stage, I've loved doing that in a way that embraced a minimalist aesthetic and embraced

a theatricality. But I've also really loved working with my collaborators and worked very

closely with Joe and Rob on the development of this and making sure that it was heartfelt

that it was political, and that it was fun. Well, to make my Broadway debut with this show is

absolutely amazing. I want to say that it's a show that I love, that other people love

and it's something that I love to do. So being able to play all the characters

and it was so unexpected. No one expected it to happen. So it was a lot of fun

I never ever would have guessed that we would have ended up here

but at the same time the story is so wonderful and all the people working on it

have always been so amazing that I actually, looking back, in a weird way it sort of makes sense

I've envisioned opening on Broadway one day in so many different ways

and I couldn't have picked a better show, a better cast, a better creative crew, a better crew to do it with

It has been the most amazing experience and just filled with love and life and happiness

We're very lucky