Daniel Radcliffe Will Personally Pull You Onstage in His New Broadway Show—If You’re Lucky

Just after I settled in my seat, I tilted my Playbill to catch the light for my requisite photo before every show. The audience was still trickling in, but there was one figure, wearing a plain light blue t-shirt and jeans, running around frantically.

Wait. Was that Daniel Radcliffe? Sure, this was his new one-man Broadway play, “Every Brilliant Thing.” But with a face recognizable to the world for more than two decades as Harry Potter, there’s no way they would let him loose like this, with no barrier between audience and superstar.

But that is exactly the point of this show, written by Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe, which has quietly become a global sensation, performed in 66 countries in 44 languages. The plot follows a heart-wrenching story of a young man dealing with his mother’s attempted suicide, by desperately peppering her life with positivity, with a list of all the brilliant things in this world. There’s ice cream, things with stripes, and of course, when the car wipers move to the beat of a song.

Woven into that is the backbone of audience participation—and a ton of it. This isn’t just another show that’s been rehearsed to perform in front of the audience, it’s one that envelopes every single person sitting in the theater, whether they’re asked to read an item off the list, take an item out of their bag, get pulled on the stage to be part of the show, or just sit among all those elements happening around them.

And it’s Radcliffe himself who recruits many of those participants.

So that’s why, before the show even started, he was bolting around, basically casting his own costars as the audience trickled in.

I had snagged a ticket to the very first preview on February 21, so no one in the audience knew what to expect. The introvert in me tried to duck whenever Radcliffe or any of the producers looked my way. But I had chosen a stage seat—in the second row, right in the middle.

At one point, Radcliffe came toward our section, gave a few people instructions on their props while telling the rest of us, “If you all feel like shouting and getting involved, you’re more than welcome to, but you don’t have to. If you would like to, you can.” Then he turned back to say, “Thank you for being here—this will be chaos!”

But then very organically, all the pre-show hoopla melted away, and Radcliffe became the play’s unnamed storyteller, guiding us all through an 85-minute journey.

Without giving too much away, it’s the impromptu and improv that elicit laughs through his character’s pain, turning the grim tale into one that goes beyond fiction, proving how universal all our emotions are, especially unrehearsed.

One audience member stepped in as his counselor, taking off her shoe and turning her sock into a puppet. Another’s jacket stood in for his dog, taken to the vet, also a volunteer from the audience. Books were pulled out from bags and turned into fodder (at a show this week, someone brought “Heated Rivalry”!). Little did I know, the driver’s seat of Radcliffe’s car would be right in front of me, occupied by an audience member who stepped in as his father … and there I was in his back seat.

All throughout the show, the cards that Radcliffe had handed out with items off his character’s list were read by audience members, echoing through the theater from every side of the stage seating to the very top corners of the balcony.

At the end, I found myself literally surrounded by little slips of paper, all handwritten with brilliant things. The ones that fell into my lap: “When bus drivers wave at each other,” “Savoring the last few pages of a great novel,” and “Unexpected and sincere compliments!”

After the curtain call, I was in an emotional trance, filled with optimism about the world, despite the emotional journey I’d just been through. And the masterful ability of Radcliffe to orchestrate it so poignantly, despite all the unpredictable certainties of depending on strangers, just made it ever so more powerful.

As I left the theater that Saturday afternoon, I thought back to the last time I’d seen Radcliffe on the same stage for “Merrily We Roll Along,” the Stephen Sondheim flop that he, Jonathan Groff, and Lindsay Mendez turned into a runaway Tony-winning hit—revving up my Broadway passion. I realized I’d also seen the 36-year-old actor in the journalism research play “The Lifespan of a Fact,” the dark comedy “The Cripple of Inishmaan,” another favorite, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” and even his Broadway debut in “Equus.” Apparently, I’d been a Radcliffe theater stan without even realizing it—each time being more charmed and surprised by his secret arsenal of talents.

But the brilliant thing about “Every Brilliant Thing” is that it strips everything down and lets Radcliffe call the shots in the moment, breaking down that wall between performer and audience to truly share in a journey together. And that is truly the most brilliant thing.

“Every Brilliant Thing” starring Daniel Radcliffe is currently scheduled to run through May 24, 2026, at the Hudson Theatre in New York City.