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[0:00] Lauren Van Hemert: This is the Beltline to Broadway podcast. I'm Lauren Van Hemert, your host, and on this episode, I'm chatting with David Henderson, co-founder of Honest Pint Theatre Company in Raleigh and star of their production of Every Brilliant Thing. This episode was filmed live on TikTok, and at the end, I asked folks to share with me their brilliant things. I will share those with you at the end of this podcast. Here's David.

[0:39] David Henderson: What is the state of our regional theaters? Because everybody's always got their eye on Broadway, but I'm more concerned about the thousands of regional theaters around the country. It's funny. I always want to say that the state of our union is strong. I think it is. I think the challenges that we face on the local area, space, we've always talked about space being a premium. Small itinerant companies that don't have the infrastructure or don't have a brick and mortar that are moving around, it gets harder and harder to produce. A lot of those smaller companies are trying to do some of the shows that the larger companies might not do, might not be interested in doing. But other than that, I think the state of it is strong.

We live in an area that is full of amazingly talented people and people who have chosen to live here and create art and tell stories here. When I graduated from college, you could count the number of theater companies in the Triangle on one hand. I think now at last count, there were well over 80 companies producing at various levels throughout the year. That indicates that it's a strong region and there is something for everybody in that area. You know what I mean? I think people don't understand. I mean, North Carolina is so geographically perfectly placed between the Atlanta film scene and Broadway and New York City. It's an easy plane ride pretty much anywhere else. We do have a lot of equity professional actors and companies working here.

The governor just gave a state of our film industry address yesterday. The film industry here in North Carolina, I know I've posted about the film industry in Wilmington, is really strong. I feel like we're very blessed to live in this area.

[3:01] Lauren Van Hemert: We are. I know a lot of people who have moved to New York and then chosen to come back here or people that were not necessarily native to here who lived in Chicago, LA, New York, or places and chose to move here because there is the ability to have some kind of work-life balance here that is appealing to people who want to do what we do.

[3:28] David Henderson: Oren Kennedy Brady, she's a co-producer on Galileo. She's a co-producer on Titanic. She produced Bull Durham at Paper Mill. Some of you saw Bull Durham there. Terrence Mann worked with North Carolina Theater. Casey Eshins, who's now with Paper Mill. All of these people have their roots here in North Carolina. I don't know, David. When I first moved here, I was like, oh, there's not going to be any culture or any theater in North Carolina. I had no idea this area was so thriving.

[4:02] David Henderson: I think we grow. I read somewhere, and I may be wrong, that there were 60-plus people moving here every day, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it is. A lot of the people that are moving here are coming from areas that have a vibrant art scene, so that demand creates the need for more and more. People want to go out and want to be. It's hard. I think the pandemic really changed us a lot. I think it changed the way people engage with stuff because you can sit at home and for $16.99 a month spend an hour trying to figure out what you want to watch on Netflix. That is an affordable thing. Theater is not necessarily always an affordable thing. That becomes a barrier to access to something sometimes. I do have to ask you this. I don't think you and I ever have had this conversation, but certainly it is a top of mind for so many artists now, and that is AI. Does AI have any place in the theater?

[5:15] David Henderson: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I really don't know. I think the challenge, AI, whether I want it to or not, it's not going anywhere. The problem I have with AI is it is replacing people's ability to think critically. I think it allows for shortcuts. I know people who are writing, but they're using AI to do the writing. That's not what writing is, right? I think there's going to be a period of really intense growing pains where we figure out what it does, but the beauty is that AI cannot replace this. It cannot replace human connection. It cannot replace that feeling of being in a room with total strangers and having your breath become synced because you're watching and experiencing the same thing.

I don't know about you, but I can see through AI-generated slop like that. It lacks depth. It lacks humanity. I don't know if you saw the interview that they did on the Today Show with that Tilly Underwood AI actress. I turned the TV off. I was like, this is terrible. Then they interviewed her on Piers Morgan, and she glitched and started speaking Mandarin. I don't think it's going to replace us. I don't think it's going away either. I think it's going to be a part of it in some way, shape, or form, but we have to control what that is. We can't use it to do things. We have to figure out how it's a tool for us, if that makes sense.

[7:04] Lauren Van Hemert: Yeah. I want to talk about Every Brilliant Thing. I had a spectacular run on Broadway with Mariska Argaday, Daniel Radcliffe nominated for a Tony Award, Tracy Ellis Ross, some incredible people. I saw this play a few years ago in a regional production and really fell in love with it, but why do you think it is resonating so much with audiences now?

[7:30] David Henderson: It's a universal truth, it's a universal truth that we all can understand and do need to talk about. Life is messy. Life is funny, even in its most ridiculous moments. At its core, the play is about love and the idea of noticing the little things in life. I think that's what people want. We are inundated daily. We have so many inputs. I'm talking to you on a phone right now that I carry in my pocket that has news, has this. I have access to everything and I'm constantly being bombarded, which makes me miss the little things like my cat or whatever. I think the show is a way that people can sit in a room and be human in a way that a lot of plays don't. It's partially because of the generosity of the way the show is written.

The narrator is there, but the narrator can be anybody, male, female, black, white, pink, green, anything. The audience helps tell the story in such a way that I think you can't not be engaged and you can't not leave the show thinking about the little things in your own life that are brilliant and make your life worth living. I think that's why it's successful. At its core, it is a show about mental health, about how we can talk about mental health. Sometimes when I talk about the show and I go into what it's about, some people go, God, what a downer. I'm like, no, it's not. It's beautiful. It's warm. It's funny. I think the humor is what makes it truly human. We have to be able to laugh and then be hit with a moment unexpectedly where you go, oh, that resonates in a way.

I think that's why. It's why I love Shakespeare. It's similar. It's like this universal truth. You've lost a parent. I lost my dad a couple of years ago and have learned that grief is definitely not linear and it blows and sneaks up on you. What does this play have to say about grief and how does it help those who are hurting from a loss?

[10:03] David Henderson: I think there's something about grief.

[10:14] David Henderson: You said it. Grief is not linear. I lost my dad in 2020, and there are days where I don't think about it. But then there are days where it hits me, and it's in those moments that this is going to be – I don't mean it to sound pat, but I love my animals, right? And saying goodbye to a pet – we lost a pet a while back – was one of the hardest. That's the price we pay for loving them. And I think that is what life is, right? We have these relationships with people, and those relationships change. But it doesn't destroy the core love at the foundation of that. So, when we're grieving, there's real grief and longing and missing that person and missing the laughter, the smell, or whatever. But at the core of that is still that love that still exists.

And I think that's one of the things I love about this play, is that through the life of the narrator, as I change through the show, the list changes. And then at the end, he says the list didn't save her. It couldn't. And that's the thing. I cannot save you. I can love you, and you can love me. And when you're gone, I'm still going to love you, and I'm going to miss you. So, there are a couple of moments in the show that just blow my mind. And one of my favorite lines in the show is, if you get to the end of a very long life and have not once felt crushingly depressed, then you probably weren't paying attention. So, that says to me that grief is part of life, and it's who we are. And the way we talk about mental health in this country, we don't. I think, again, that is why this play is so profound, so relevant. Because of all of these brilliant things that are discussed, and because the audience is so much a part of this, there is a gateway into this play for pretty much anybody who is breathing.

[12:49] Lauren Van Hemert: 100%. And I think one of the interesting things that I think, to go back to something you said earlier about why is this play so resonant, I'm not 100% sure that we know the mental health impact of the five years of the pandemic, of that shutdown. I see it in my children. I see it in my son who's 19. I see it in my bonus child who's 23. I see it, but I also see it in me, in a way that I wasn't aware of as we're moving through it. Because I think sometimes we do what we need to do to get to the next moment in life, and we're not still enough to understand and appreciate our own grief and our own struggle. And I think that's a huge thing that I'm learning, is to start to slow down. And that's what you have to do, is notice these little things, because it's easy not to.

And it's easy, as you said, when we're all looking through our screens, and not looking up. And I don't want to say that this play is all about grief, because it's as much about life and living and appreciating and loving and living. This is really a play about living. It is. And one of my other favorite lines is, hope. It's about hope, right? Without hope, what is there, right? And I think that that's something that is easy to lose. I mean, let's be honest, we're living in a very unique time in the world, globally, whatever. It can be overwhelming. I've had to create a boundary for myself, where I used to watch the news all the time. I'd get up in the morning, I don't have the Today show on all the time, and they'd be yucking it up and the tragedy. Now, I get up, I watch the headlines, and then for the rest of the day, I try to avoid as much news as I can. Because then I'll fixate on it.

[15:02] David Henderson: Yeah, yeah. And it's easy to spiral. It's so easy to spiral. I do want to ask you, David, because you touched on it, about the state of the art. Because the arts are so under attack right now. We have people that are ready to literally wrap themselves around the Kennedy Center to make sure that glorious building is not torn down. Do you view theater, the act of performing, and the act of theater going as political, as a political act right now?

[15:49] David Henderson: It can be, yeah. Because here's the thing, I think...

[15:56] Lauren Van Hemert: David steps up on the soapbox for a second. Go ahead.

[15:59] David Henderson: People are afraid. I think the reason people are afraid of theater, and theater going, and artists in general, is that, as Hamlet said, art holds the mirror up to nature, and it shows us who we are, the good, the bad, the ugly, all of that. And if I can prevent you from looking in the mirror, I can control you. And the more we go to theater, whatever you're consuming, the world can change because of that. I always say theater, because if you're sitting there... Romeo and Juliet is always an example I use, because the goal of theater... Everybody knows Romeo and Juliet. We all know how it ends. But the beautiful thing is those moments when you're sitting there leaning forward going, oh my God, tonight's the night they're going to live.

You know what I mean? And that shift in your body, that shift forward, is a change. And theater can affect that. And I think the people who want to stop it, want to stop it, because the emotion that you have in response to a piece of theater could motivate you to do something outside of the theater that puts their power in jeopardy. So I think it is a political act. Everything we do. You know, it's so interesting. I love Lauren Gunderson. She's probably one of my favorite playwrights. When I interviewed her, she said every act of theater, every act of just sitting in an audience is a political act.

[17:25] Lauren Van Hemert: Yeah. And Mike Wiley, who you and I know so well, and those of you who don't live in North Carolina, Mike Wiley is a brilliant artist, playwright, performer. He's a North Carolina treasure, like you, David. And he once said to me that good theater tills up the soil and helps us contextualize the world around us. And I love that. And he's right. And it goes back to what we were saying about the state of our union, right? The more theater there is, the more opportunity, like every time I walk onto a stage or every time I walk into a theater as a theater boy, there is somebody in that theater who is experiencing this for the first time.

[18:30] David Henderson: Right. And I think there's value in that. And we as a culture have not trained people to go to the theater, to go to the other point, like other countries, people just go to the theater. Here, it's an effort. But I think that doing that and building that culture of theater going, there are theaters around here who have loyal, loyal patrons and fantastic. It's getting those people who aren't the patrons to come and getting them to experience for the first time.

[19:07] Lauren Van Hemert: Yeah. One of the things I love about Every Brilliant Thing is this interaction between audience. There is no fourth wall. The fourth wall is broken from the first three seconds. When I was in New York last, I saw Masquerade, which was this completely immersive production where you're in the phantom story. Is this the future of theater, these interactive, immersive performances? Or do you think this is just kind of a trend?

[19:40] David Henderson: I know. Is it a trend? Yes. Is it a trend that will last? I hope so. There's a production running that just opened a couple of weeks ago called Becoming Hamlet. People in the audience are Hamlet. And you can purchase your tickets at different tiers. You can be actively participatory, kind of participatory, or just I want to sit back and watch. And there is no Hamlet. So Hamlet, you could play Hamlet, or we call up another person and they're doing a scene, or there's one person who has a line. And it's really kind of deconstructing the show. And I watched a video of the whole thing, not the show, but then talking about.

[20:29] David Henderson: As an actor, how do you prepare for that? Susanna and I, Susanna's been great about it. Like, we talk through a lot of the various scenarios. Like, what if somebody says no? What if this happens? What if this happens? So, I always say in theater, being prepared is the best thing. Because, you know, if you joke and say, what if this happens and you don't prepare for it, it's definitely going to happen. So, we're preparing and kind of running through some of those scenarios. But it's hard to do without people, without an audience. I think when you're an actor, the brain doesn't turn off. Or any kind of an artist, it just doesn't turn off. No, and I hate to admit this, but years ago, when I was doing, I would travel a lot and do shows.

And I was the guy with a script on the steering wheel. I would be driving with the script here. So, doing that. And I don't do that anymore. But I did. I used to because I was always trying to be prepared. And I was always learning something. And this show, it's 47 pages. And it's harder in some ways than other one-person shows that I've done. I was thinking about that the other day. Like, I am my own wife.

[21:51] Lauren Van Hemert: I was just going to say, Doug Wright, I am my own wife. That was another one you did. That was brilliant.

[21:52] David Henderson: Yeah. Thank you. And I love that. I love that show so much. It's very different because the fourth wall doesn't get broken. The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey, another one-person show that I have done. And again, the fourth wall isn't really broken in the way it is with this. Because in this, you literally walk out into the audience. And the audience is given these cards at the start of the show. And you go, you know, I can have a conversation and say, hey, Lauren, when I say the number 654, read this card. And I want you to read it loud with great diction or whatever. But when I say 654, I'm waiting for you. That's your line. I'm like, hey.

[24:41] Lauren Van Hemert: And I think one of the things that threw people off in New York, David, that didn't know this play is, you know, Daniel Radcliffe roaming through the balcony, handing people cards, asking them if they would bring in the show with them. I mean, you know, there is no producer doing that. It is the actor having that built-in relationship before the show even starts. And it's interesting, the script. So they've updated the script quite a bit since the original in 2013, 2014. There are a lot of footnotes in the script now. And a lot of those footnotes are, so-and-so did it in Kenya, and here's what happened. And Daniel Radcliffe did this. So it's going through different moments in the show and kind of providing you a guide for how they have handled these moments across multiple productions. And I think that's an interesting thing, because literally there are some pages where it's that much footnote and only that much text.

[26:00] David Henderson: Honest Pint, what I love about this theater company, I mean, I adore David and I adore Susanna. And I've known them both a long time. But when you have a company that only does one or two plays a year, this isn't a company that does six, eight shows in a season. Honest Pint does like two shows a year. And what's extraordinary is those two shows, you know that you're going to get a fabulous production, because the acting, the storytelling, it's always introducing you to a play that is so relevant and important, and that will make you laugh and make you think all at the same time. And I think that's what we should be doing, right? Like, that's what theater should do. I want to go to the theater and I want to have the best time of my life.

Like, I want to laugh. I want to come out humming the songs, but I also want to go to the theater and come out angry, right? I want to come out changed in some way, because that's what the power of theater is. It can make you think. And somebody last night messaged me after the show.

[27:14] Lauren Van Hemert: Things. My friends. They had seen it last night. And trust me, it was far from a good performance, right? It was a rehearsal. But they said they love a play where they get in the car and ride home, and they don't turn the radio. My love for NYC. Because they just want to sit with their thoughts about the piece they've just seen. And that, to me, is...

[27:40] David Henderson: Meeting Julie Benko. Love it. I love that. Lying down on the sidewalk while it's raining. I want to take a minute and look at the things people shared with us. A 14-year-old son during this pumpkin chai lotion. Here are your every brilliant moment. Hearing your students make absolutely beautiful sounds and love doing it. Meeting the Phantom, Isaiah Bailey. He's currently on tour in Phantom of the Opera. Liz just added putting your feet in the ocean.

[28:44] Lauren Van Hemert: I love that. And I love that we had this eclectic conversation about it. So that's amazing. What's yours, David?

[29:01] David Henderson: I have a lot of brilliant things. I was thinking about it today. One thing that I think that is brilliant to me and something that I love most is a banjo. I cannot be sad when I'm listening to a banjo. I love bluegrass. And for years, I was not eager to admit that. But it is one of the things that I know that brings me tremendous joy is listening to really good banjo music.

[29:36] Lauren Van Hemert: I love that. Do you play the banjo?

[29:39] David Henderson: No, I don't. I had a banjo when I was in college, and it was too hard. I played the guitar, but I wanted to learn the banjo. But then I was like, no, I'll let other people play it. There's a band that I followed for about 20 years, and they're a band from North Carolina. And they did a bluegrass cover of Baba O'Reilly by The Who. And I'm not kidding when I say it changed my life. It was in that moment that I realized, wait a minute. That's who I am. That's the life. If I deny this any longer, I'll be doing myself a disservice. And I followed this band. I probably saw them 200 plus times over 25, 30 years.

[30:23] Lauren Van Hemert: The Honest Pint Theater Company's production of Every Brilliant Thing runs through October 11th. I'll put the details in the episode notes. If you like what you've heard, please follow me on social media at Beltline to Broadway on Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram. I'll see you at the theater.