Shanan Custer gave an emotional one-woman performance of “Every Brilliant Thing” on Monday to an engaged audience at the Schoenecker Center Performance Hall.
The interactive play, originally written by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe, navigates complicated themes of growing up as it follows a young girl coping with her mother’s lifelong struggle with depression.
Director Leah Cooper handed out lines to willing audience members at the show’s start and instructed them to speak when cued. The performance hall was set up unconventionally: the audience surrounded Custer, allowing her to involve them by sitting next to them, asking them to play various roles and using their pens, books and socks as props.
Cooper hosted a question-and-answer segment after the performance, allowing audience members to reflect and ask questions. Many audience members said they felt safe playing along, even when they couldn’t predict the outcome.
Support from the community was multi-dimensional. The play relied on support from the audience to explore complex themes of suicide and provided on-campus resources for mental health at the entrance of the performance hall.
Sophomore Alejandro Vega thought the audience’s role in the play felt important. “It wasn’t interactivity for interactivity’s sake. It added this communal aspect, and a lot of the time, we are so alone in our heads,” Vega said.
Cooper agreed with Vega about the power of theater to bring people together.
“This kind of journey and this kind of pain is not something we should carry alone, right? To tell the story together is a way to experience the story together,” Cooper said.
Custer’s performance came at what many hope will be the upswing from the American theater crisis, which saw declining support for local theaters following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Bill Tolman said that the play is part of a larger storytelling effort within the university.
“The university used to have a theater program – a department – but it doesn’t anymore. There’s a few courses that are taught, mostly by Shanan Custer,” Tolman said.
Despite the theater department being discontinued in 2008, Tolman said that elevating theater at St. Thomas is an important goal of his.
“(Theater) taps into people’s emotions. People gain a deeper understanding of complex issues through theater and art,” Tolman said. “It empowers people to gain a greater sense of purpose and connection to each other. I would like to see St. Thomas build better bridges and connections with that wonderful theater arts community that we live in.”
In the future, students can expect to see new efforts involving St. Thomas’s student-run Theater Club along with events in the Twin Cities area, according to Tolman.
The new Scene Setters theater and drama initiative was created in 2024 by the College of Arts and Sciences. “Scene Setters is a hub, a connecting energy, for theater and storytelling—both telling and listening to stories, both making and attending theater. It is for people who believe that story is how we get to know one another, that theater is a place where we build community,” according to the College of Arts and Science’s website.
Amy Muse, an English professor who teaches theater and drama, is excited about theater on campus.
“My brilliant thing – what would be on my list – would be filling this space and seeing so many people coming out for theater at St. Thomas,” Muse said.
Sabrina Thompson can be contacted at thom4836@stthomas.edu.