Hear the Broadway Cast and Creator Talkin' 'Bout Liberation on Opening Night

Liberation, Bess Wohl’s memory play exploring second-wave feminism and the complexities of social change across generations, opened on Broadway at the James Earl Jones Theatre on October 28. Many of Broadway's best and brightest were in attendance, rubbing elbows with cast members Betsy Aidem, Susannah Flood, Audrey Corsa, Kayla Davion, Kristolyn Lloyd, Irene Sofia Lucio, Charlie Thurston and Adina Verson as they walked the red carpet alongside playwright Wohl and director Whitney White. The full cast reprise their roles from the off-Broadway production staged by Roundabout Theatre Company earlier this year.

Broadway.com caught up with the cast and creatives on the big night, and everyone was feeling the flower power. “The audience response is beyond what I ever could have imagined,” said Wohl, who earned a Tony nomination for her play Grand Horizons in 2020. “The moments of laughter, the moments of applause in the middle of a scene, the way the lines resonate with them, and the things they hear that sort of teach me about the play and help me see new things in the play, that's really extraordinary.” She called the Liberation experience a “dream come true” and added, “Whitney and I always wanted this show to reach the most people that it could, to be on the biggest stage that it could, and it's just such an incredible feeling to have it actually be happening.”

Speaking of the fearless director, Tony-nominated for 2024's Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, she’s finding that the play has a heightened resonance in its new home. “The jokes are landing louder. The pathos hits harder,” she said. “It's funny. The play hasn't changed that much, but the world has. We all have. And as we all change, we've seen a lot more in the work. I'd like to say it just feels like we turned the volume up on the play that everyone fell in love with last spring at the Roundabout.”

Star Susannah Flood is reaping the benefits of turning back the clock and playing in a completely phone-free space—a welcome byproduct of the show involving nudity. “I hope that people take away that it is pleasurable to be in conversation with each other, even if it is inconvenient,” Flood said. “I hope that people take an appreciation for an analog time away from Liberation; they go home and turn their phones off and seek to interface with the people in their community, build community by being with each other in really personal, non-digital, non-mediated, immediate ways."

Cast member Kristolyn Lloyd is similarly optimistic that the play’s message could have a ripple effect on the country’s fraught sociopolitical climate. “My hope is that it will find its place outside of a Broadway audience,” Lloyd said. “Throughout the United States would be great. To have more theaters doing the show and more women getting to be exposed to it would be a dream.”

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