Meet the stage manager who helps you share the spotlight with Daniel Radcliffe

Jhanaë K-C Bonnick discusses her unique role in the interactive Broadway play Every Brilliant Thing, which reunites her with the Tony Award-winning actor.

Summary

• Production stage manager Jhanaë K-C Bonnick discusses her work on the Broadway play Every Brilliant Thing starring Daniel Radcliffe
• The solo play involves lots of voluntary audience participation that Bonnick; Radcliffe; and other staff help facilitate
• She is visible to the audience unlike most stage managers
• Bonnick and Radcliffe previously worked together on Merrily We Roll Along

Audiences at Broadway shows typically never see the stage managers. That’s different at Every Brilliant Thing.

“I’m also in the house,” Jhanaë K-C Bonnick, the show’s production stage manager, told New York Theatre Guide. “It’s really eye-opening.”

Duncan Macmillan’s solo play, written with Jonny Donahoe, is unique from most Broadway fare, which means Bonnick’s role is, too. As audiences enter the Hudson Theatre, the play’s star, Tony Award winner Daniel Radcliffe, is ready to greet them — as is Bonnick. Not hidden away in a booth, Bonnick is also in the house getting a feel for the audience who, in this interactive show, may be cast in a role.

“I’ve never really had to think about what an audience’s energy is like before a show because I’m usually in my office, and then I go to the call desk," Bonnick said. I think about the audience insofar as I hear their reactions, but I don’t see them.”

However, in Every Brilliant Thing, seeing the audience is a necessity. Before the show begins, Bonnick waits in the house as Radcliffe and two associate directors find audience members to participate in the play.

Without giving too much away, Every Brilliant Thing concerns mental health and resilience, and about 80 audience members are handed numbered cards naming brilliant things (for example, ice cream) so that when Radcliffe calls out the number, the recipient reads off the corresponding response. On top of that, five theatregoers are cast in larger roles that require being on stage. Between the venue opening and the show starting, the team has just 30 minutes to enlist dozens of participants.

Bonnick is there to ensure the process moves smoothly and punctually. “I’m there to do call times — 'hey, 15; hey, 5 minutes' — but to also help facilitate,” she said. Sometimes, she'll spot an audience member who she thinks may fit one of the five speaking roles. She’ll then ask Radcliffe and the associates, “Have you checked her out? She seems cool.”

Bonnick noted that audience participation is completely consensual. “Dan is committed to really taking care of people,” Bonnick said. “He balances the line perfectly so audiences have enough information without letting surprises go.”

Watching Radcliffe navigate the crowd, Bonnick is also there to “be a bit of a buffer — if the audience has questions, we have the answers, so we’re out in the house to help,” she said.

In theatre, it’s not uncommon to hear that each performance is different, but that is particularly true for Every Brilliant Thing given the major audience participation. That also affects when design cues are called, so Bonnick has a rare seat for a stage manager: at a table in the orchestra. Normally, stage managers are located in a private booth toward the back of the theatre.

“There are several moments in the show where it is clear that Dan can look at me and then things will happen on stage,” Bonnick says of calling cues off Radcliffe’s gestures. “Or, he tells me to do something, and I do it — that’s in an effort to make it clear we are all building this thing together.”

In that way, Bonnick is integral to how the show takes shape, and this one requires a specific bond between actor and stage manager. Fortunately, it is not Bonnick’s first time working with Radcliffe, who stars in the show until Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’s Mariska Hargitay takes over on May 26.

“I was the production stage manager for Merrily We Roll Along in the Hudson Theatre [in 2023], and I also did it off Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop [in 2022]," said Bonnick, naming the musical revival for which Radcliffe won his Tony. "So Dan and I have known each other for a few years now.

“He’s definitely seen me grow, whether or not he’s aware of it — I’ve grown so much as a stage manager, and in some ways, I started working with him at a pivotal moment in my career. Merrily was my first PSM contract on Broadway,” Bonnick continued. “I learned how to show up as a younger person in a space while holding authority. I don’t know if I’ve worked with a harder-working person in my career. Dan’s really as special as he seems — he’s a ‘brilliant thing’ on someone’s list, I’m sure.”

Working on Brilliant also keeps the job fresh each night; it is not a show that lets Bonnick be on autopilot. “It’s a one-man show, and it’s not. It’s a play and a communal event,” she said.

“On other shows, when you hit a certain part in the run [...] you can do it without a lot of thought, and sometimes if you’re in a really long run, the work can be to stay focused because you know it so well,” Bonnick added. “But on this show, because it’s variable and I’m so visible, there is nowhere to hide, and it’s different every day, so remaining engaged is never in question.”

Being visible, for Bonnick, was at first “incredibly nerve-wracking because everyone can look at you,” she said. But now, she sees that as part of “the beauty of the show — I can’t imagine calling the show from backstage. I wouldn't know it or feel it in the way I can, and I wouldn't be able to stage-manage in the way I like to, which is to really engage with the piece and performers. There’s only so much you can get from a screen.”

While Every Brilliant Thing differs from many shows, it ends as they all do: with a curtain call, which includes a nod to the stage manager.

At the end of the show, Radcliffe bows, indicates the five audience members who played speaking roles, and gestures to Bonnick at her table. Though it’s her moment in the spotlight, it’s one of the few times she’s not looking at the audience.

”If I’m being totally transparent,” Bonnick said, “I’m calling cues.”

Get Every Brilliant Thing tickets now.

Top image credit: Jhanaë K-C Bonnick. (Photo by Andy Henderson)
In-article image credit: Daniel Radcliffe in Every Brilliant Thing on Broadway. (Photos by Matthew Murphy)