Susannah Flood Turns Liberation Into a Full-Body Experience on Broadway

At the start of every performance of Liberation, Susannah Flood walks on stage with the house lights still up and delivers a funny monologue about the audience’s phones (all locked in pouches!), their wardrobe choices (way too casual!) and the play’s running time (under five hours!). Despite the breaking of the fourth wall, few realize that she’s actually in character the whole time. “When we were at the Roundabout Theatre,” she says, “people frequently assumed I was the in-house intern.”

So please do note that Flood plays Lizzie, a harried mom who creates a memory play to relive her own mother’s time as a women’s liberation activist and member of a consciousness-raising (CR) group in the 1970s. For years, the six women meet in the basement of a local Ohio recreation center to air out their personal and professional struggles. Flood (Birthday Candles, The Cherry Orchard) navigates between past and present with relatable poignancy. Hours before curtain at the James Earl Jones Theatre, she talked to Broadway.com.

We’re talking while Liberation is still in previews. How are you feeling?
There's always a little bit of anxiety, especially right now because we're still figuring it out. A lot of different things happen at different shows. It feels a little bit unpredictable.

Do you ever go off-script in that opening monologue?
Sometimes I have to improvise. Last Sunday afternoon, there was a guy in the audience who just started chatting with me. I was talking about this being a memory play, and he was like, “You've got memory issues? I'm older than you!” He wanted to have a full-on conversation. And when people talk to me, I try to respond. Then I have to quickly find my way back to the text.

You’ve been with Liberation since its off-Broadway inception last fall. How did you get involved?
I had worked with [playwright] Bess Wohl in 2019 for Make Believe, and I really felt like I heard her voice. We kept in touch, and she sent me the script for Liberation in 2024 before its summer workshop. I couldn’t do it at the time for scheduling reasons, but it ended up working out.

What spoke to you about the role of Lizzie?
Everything! But to be totally frank, the place where I immediately saw myself was in the middle of the first act when Lizzie—as the narrator—talks about how hard it is to be a parent and a professional at the same time. There’s the pure exhaustion balancing those two jobs and the daily prosaic-but-important logistical difficulties of life. Like how do I pay for child care if I'm going to work? I have a three-year-old son, and I never anticipated the power of those considerations. So when I read the script, I was like, “Oh, yeah, tell me about it.”

Lizzie also has a cathartic breakthrough talking about her late mother. What are you really thinking about in that moment?
You know, the play feels very urgent to me because, as I said, I’m living with this conflict. I could shed tears on this topic every day, except I don’t have enough time to get emotional. So in some ways the play creates a space in my daily life where I'm having this conversation explicitly. The amazing thing about acting is that the more you invest personally in your character, the more exposed you feel.

Let’s talk about the beginning of Act II when you and your co-stars are fully nude and dissect their own bodies. Any trepidation on your part when stripping down?
It’s always a little bit scary. It’s actually scarier now than it was at the Roundabout because it feels more audacious to be fully naked on Broadway. This audience is coming from around the country now! Maybe they don’t know they’re in for something artistic. But I also really have a lot of faith in the scene. The point isn't that we're naked — this is a thing that women did in CR groups in the '70s. That helps a lot, because I can just focus on the emotional and social events of the time. Then I begin to feel OK.

Beyond the story, why is that scene so important?
I've heard Bess say that she's always looking for ways to do something on stage that you haven't seen before. For Make Believe, we had a bunch of child actors on stage for like 45 minutes. I also think it is radical that all these women can be on stage naked without it being sexual. Can any of us think of other instances where that has happened recently in our media? So it’s valuable for audiences just to see naked bodies, period. They’re encountering their own discomfort, and they don’t know when the scene is going to end.

What’s your relationship like with your co-stars? Are you all tight offstage, too?
I think we've all gone through different phases of, like, real closeness and more distance. There are different relationships inside of the cast. But we are united by common respect and a common mission and believe in each other as artists and love each other as people. I mean, we're in it with each other—and for the nude scene especially, we're trying to take care of each other. It’s one thing for me to do it because I’ve worked in the downtown theater scene. But it’s another thing for Betsy [Aidem], who’s a generation older than the rest of us. And Kristolyn [Lloyd] is the only Black body on the stage. There are a different range of perspectives.

What’s the takeaway from Liberation? Should audiences leave feeling hopeful?
My hope is that it’s hopeful. It’s meant to inspire people to have conversations with each other, especially intergenerationally. I’d like for children to talk to their parents and for parents to talk to their children and for there to be a sharing of perspectives. My hope is that people walk out feeling that they're not alone. One unexpected silver lining of the nude scene is that people are forced to put their phones in a pouch. That is huge. The number of times I go to a Broadway show and people are looking on their phones while the show is going on is shocking to me. The fact that the whole audience is not distracted by their phones for those two hours is a big accomplishment. So I also hope people notice that and walk out feeling good about something that took their attention.

Having the phone in a locked pouch is actually a form of liberation in itself!
Completely! People have to talk to each other and get to know each other, which is an act of community building. Seeing your own personal experiences reflected in another person’s experiences also forges social bonds that can create the energy of a political movement. That’s a positive thing.