Mariska Hargitay is Broadway's next Daniel Radcliffe

“I read Every Brilliant Thing and cried, rejoiced, laughed, cried some more, and loved it so much,” Hargitay says in a press release. “I’m always drawn to themes of healing and renewal, especially when the journey is rendered in all its complexity. It feels like an extraordinary gift to make my Broadway debut, the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, with a play that affirms life so emphatically. For me, the triumph of this beautiful piece of work—this luminously brilliant thing—is that through a deeply personal story, we experience the universal endeavor of keeping ourselves pointed towards light, compassion and hope.” 

Every Brilliant Thing first played for audiences in 2014 and comes from playwright Duncan Macmillan, who wrote it with its original performer Jonny Donahoe. The show is presented as monologue with heavy audience participation, with the unnamed main character telling a story about resolving to make a list of every brilliant thing he can think of after learning about depression and suicidal ideation as a child. The role is quite an undertaking from a memorization standpoint; before performances, Radcliffe is mingling with the crowd lining up participants for the on-stage bits and is calling on them throughout the show. He spends the entire 90-odd minutes on the stage and is speaking basically the whole time. Break a leg, Mariska Hargitay!