I Made My Broadway Debut, and Daniel Radcliffe Nailed My Pronouns

Daniel Radcliffe and I shared the post-show Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS speech.

I wouldn’t typically call myself a daring person, but something was in the air the day I saw Every Brilliant Thing on Broadway.

I tend not to do much research about a show before I see it, unless I’m on assignment. I don’t like spoilers, be they plot-related or even another’s feelings about a production, so I don’t read reviews. If it’s a musical, I don’t listen to the score. So with Every Brilliant Thing, I’d read the short blurb describing the show, I knew Daniel Radcliffe was starring (Big fan!), and I knew there would be some semblance of audience participation.

But the audience participation I’d heard about was that Radcliffe ran through the audience pre-show and gave out notecards for people to read from their seats — the titular brilliant things. I decided that, if called upon, I’d be prepared to do that. I could surely shout a few words to a room full of strangers, right? Still it felt like a big, brave decision for me, a person who trembled and hyperventilated through my own wedding vows. And I was delivering those to my soulmate in a room full of the people I loved the most. And it was almost certainly hypothetical boldness. What were the odds I’d get chosen?

As I settled into my seat at the Hudson Theatre about 20 minutes before showtime, I watched Daniel Radcliffe and his crew flit around the room, handing out assignments to giddy audience members, regrouping onstage to find their next mark. During one of those regroups, Radcliffe and associate director David Hull seemed to look in my direction. No, don’t be ridiculous. They could be looking at anyone, I said to myself.

At around the same time, my wife came back from the concession stand with a surprise box of bite-size Twizzlers. She shook one out of the box into my hand, and I popped it into my mouth in one swift motion. My eyes darted back to Radcliffe and Hull just in time to catch Hull mirror my action, popping an imaginary candy into his own mouth, as if to say, Yeah, them. The one who just shared candy with their companion.

Uh oh…

A few minutes later, Hull was kneeling in front of me.

“Has Dan come to talk to you?” he asked.
”No, not yet,” I replied.
Yet? Pretty presumptuous of me, but I was keenly aware of what was beginning to unfold.
“How do you feel about audience participation?” he followed up.
”Great!” tumbled out of my mouth before my brain could really process what I’d just been asked.

At this point, I still assumed I’d be shouting a phrase off of a notecard from the comfort of my seat. Hull asked me to sit tight and wait for Radcliffe to come give me instructions. A few moments later, he knelt before me just as Hull did shortly before.

“Hi, I’m Dan!” he said as he extended his hand to shake mine.
No shit, said my brain, but my mouth rescued us with a nice, normal, “Hi, Dan, I’m Jen.”
”How do you feel about playing my love interest?”

Hahaha, what?! I said yes, with my wife’s approval, of course.

Me and my wife with Radcliffe, post-show. He asked us and a few other participants to come back stage for a meet-and-greet.

Before I knew it, my wife and I were being moved from our orchestra seats to onstage seating. I was, in fact, handed my notecard to read, but my role as Sam, the narrator’s partner, was so much more than that. The show sees our relationship from college library meet-cute all the way through marriage and beyond. I was in for a ride.

I was asked to improv about the books we lent to each other, confess my love through a series of my own “brilliant things” my character adds to the list, and get down on one knee to propose. I was a pivotal character, looked to, referred to, and called upon several times throughout the play. Radcliffe even asked me to help him with the post-show Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS speech after he took his bows.

Of all the possible roles for me to play, Daniel Radcliffe’s love interest was absolutely nowhere on my radar. I’m visibly queer, proudly nonbinary and simply never thought I could be the type. But I’ve since learned Radcliffe has asked people of all genders to play Sam, and I have to assume playwrights Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe gave Sam a gender-inclusive name to open up that very possibility.

Hull and Radcliffe both asked me my pronouns pre-show — they/them, for the record — and Radcliffe humbly assured me he’d do his absolute best to get them right for the dozens and dozens of times he refers to me/Sam throughout the play. And he crushed it, making only one minor slip-up that he caught and corrected in real time and then vehemently apologized for post-show. Not only was Radcliffe focused on performing a fabulous show for the entire audience that day, but he was also keyed in on making sure I was accurately represented in the narrative, transforming the scripted relationship into a surprise queer love story. Our onstage wedding was enthusiastically applauded. I still can’t believe it happened.

I’ve already alluded to the fact that I’m typically pretty reserved, but I’ve been a hell of a lot braver as of late. I can’t entirely point to why, but two events stand out to me as contributing factors. The first is that over the summer, I experienced a serious traumatic event; easily the worst day of my life followed by months of serious emotional recovery. I will never be the same for having gone through it. So I figured, I’ve already been through hell. Nothing could be scarier than what I’ve already survived.

The second thing is that in the wake of that trauma, I started an SSRI. It was a huge decision for me and took my many months of dithering to finally take the plunge, but saying yes to medication has changed my life. I’d always experienced anxiety very viscerally — rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, dizziness, hyperventilation, and fainting if I wasn’t careful. Medication changed that. My anxiety is not gone, but it does not overtake my whole being anymore. Now I can be nervous without it spiraling into a panic attack. Now I can say yes to being Daniel Radcliffe’s love interest in a play that speaks to the power of getting help for mental health struggles. And for that I’m grateful.

After the curtain fell, I and a few other audience members who played larger roles got to hang back to meet Radcliffe after the show. He lives up to his well-earned reputation of really cool celebrity. As I stumbled out onto the sidewalk, back into the real world, people stopped me outside the theater to congratulate me on my performance. I just about floated home.

The narrator’s list of brilliant things reaches a million by the end of the play. I have no doubt the one I’m about to offer up is already on there somewhere: Saying yes to something you never thought you could do, and having it go exactly right.

Disclaimer: Radcliffe did not know I was a writer. This was not a setup for an article, and I had no intention of writing about this show before I was picked to perform in it. But sometimes, a great story falls into your lap. Thanks for giving me a fantastic one, Dan.

Daniel Radcliffe stars in Every Brilliant Thing through May 24. Mariska Hargitay takes over on May 26.