Every Brilliant Thing at Maryland Ensemble Theatre

Maryland Ensemble Theatre closes its mainstage season with Every Brilliant Thing, the Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe play that has become one of the most quietly affecting pieces of contemporary theatre. Directed by Tad Janes, the production runs through June 14, 2026, on MET's Robin Drummond Main Stage in the historic FSK Hotel building at 31 W. Patrick Street in downtown Frederick, Maryland.

The play opens on the day the nameless narrator's mother makes her first attempt at suicide. In response, the narrator — then just a child — begins compiling a list of every brilliant thing in the world, every reason life is worth living, as a gift to leave for her. Number one on the list is ice cream. From that simple beginning, the play follows the narrator across decades, tracing how the list grows alongside its author: through a childhood counseling session, through college years spent studying depression, through young love and marriage, and into an adulthood where the narrator must reckon with depression of their own. Entries on the list evolve in step with the character, expanding from kid-sized joys into things like wearing a capes, the way Ray Charles sings the word "you," the even-numbered Star Trek films, and other small wonders that reveal a life accumulating in real time.

What makes Every Brilliant Thing unlike almost any other play is that the audience is not watching the show so much as helping to build it. Before the performance begins, the actor and members of the MET team move through the house handing out slips of paper, props, and small assignments. Each slip carries a numbered item from the list. When the narrator calls out a number during the performance, whoever is holding that slip calls back the brilliant thing written on it. Other audience members are gently recruited into larger roles entirely, stepping into the story as a father, a veterinarian, a teacher, a love interest, guided by the actor with prompts, props, and a remarkable amount of trust. Because of this, no two performances are ever quite the same. The play breathes differently depending on the room, the night, and the people who happen to be in it.

MET's production amplifies that intimacy through its staging. The show is performed in the round on a small elevated platform surrounded on every side by the audience, close enough that the actor can make eye contact with every single person in the house. Scenic design by Cody James keeps the space deliberately spare, with a handful of overhead fixtures and very little else, which gives the few production cues real weight when they arrive. Shayden Jamison's lighting stays mostly up throughout the show, allowing the audience to remain visible to one another, but dims at carefully chosen moments to underscore the narrator's darker passages. Kevin Lloyd's sound design steps in with brief bursts of music that often land as much for comedic timing as emotional emphasis, and Lori Boyd's props — a stool, a book, a keyboard, a piece of bubble wrap — pass smoothly through the crowd in a kind of choreographed handoff that becomes part of the show's rhythm.

MET has cast three actors who rotate through the run, with each bringing their own coloration to the role. Shea-Mikal Green performs on May 23, 29, June 6, 11, and 12. Jeremy Myers performs on May 30, June 4, 5, and 14. Nadia Palacios performs on May 22, 31, June 7, and 13. Because audience participation is baked into the structure of the script itself, the show shifts not only from actor to actor but from night to night, making each performance genuinely unrepeatable.

For all its subject matter, Every Brilliant Thing is not a heavy night at the theatre. It is funny, warm, and surprisingly buoyant, and it handles depression and suicide with honesty and a real generosity of spirit. The communal nature of the performance — strangers passing props, reading lines, laughing together, and quietly looking out for one another — turns the theatre itself into a small, temporary community gathered around a story that insists, gently and persistently, that life accumulates brilliant things if you are willing to keep noticing them. Every Brilliant Thing is currently enjoying a Tony-nominated Broadway revival starring Daniel Radcliffe, and MET's production offers regional audiences a chance to experience the play in the kind of close-quarters setting where it truly comes alive.

The running time is approximately 90 minutes with no intermission. Tickets range from $7 to $36 with fees included, with Pay-What-You-Will pricing available to students, seniors, and military starting at $7 per performance while supplies last.