Video: Go Inside Opening Night of PRAYER FOR THE FRENCH REPUBLIC on Broadway

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway

Following a critically acclaimed sold-out run off Broadway, MTC has brought Joshua Harmon's award-winning play

Prayer for the French Republic, to Broadway. And we're here on opening night to celebrate with the company

Well, we fell in love with this play all over again this past Sunday

and I want to say, welcome to Broadway with the play. How does it feel? It feels really nice

I mean, I'm exhausted, but I'm really happy that it's happening. I feel lucky

You know, we had been talking about doing it on Broadway for a long time

and so it's really nice to be here. Yeah, I think it belongs on Broadway in the best sense of that

It's a big, beautiful Broadway play. And we were cautious about giving it the time it needed to be ready

and we hope it is. You know, when you get to do something a second time

it always feels deeper and richer. And so the people who did it the first time

bring all of that history and a lot of them play people who are family

and so you have a deeper sense of that. And then the new people inject all of this exciting energy

into the room. So it's a great combination of people who know the play inside and out

and people who are making discoveries and watching those two things collide

It's very exciting. You know, we've really, to be with a group of 10 other actors

a great director and a great writer and have worked so intimately for the last

you know, five, six weeks rehearsing and getting it up and staging and then all the

technical aspects and all the transitions to finally be here and feel

connected to everyone and like, well, this is the best we got

let's do it. I think when the writing's this good, there's a constant feeling of

like, I got to try and live up to this. And, you know

he writes beautiful beautiful things that are funny and that are also edgy and it just requires everything So that I think the challenge of it is what keeps you going like I don want to F this up

I think you can't ignore all the stuff that comes in that floods into you

You have these epiphanies that are about your own family, your own family history

There's just so many, this company has given a open, crack the story open

in a beautiful new way. So I'm very excited to be with them

And just being back with David Cromer and Joshua Harmon in the room again. I know

I know. You don't really, it's hard to improve on that. They're both really fun and funny people, too

aside from being great, serious artists, and having this muscular ability to tell a story

and, like, wrench the truth and have these quiet little subtle moments

They're also really fun. I'm so excited. and I'm just thrilled to be dressed up

and having a party after and to celebrate this wonderful play. You know, the chance to bring a great play

Broadway is exciting by itself, but when you have what we have, a great play

it's just thrilling. So we're thrilled. And working with this company, what it's been to you

Oh, my God. I mean, I've made a new family. Working with this company has been a dream come true

on so many levels, and I love them all individually. They're so talented

They're such beautiful human beings, and that combination, it doesn't really get better than that

The script is absolutely out of this world. I mean, it's like the type of script

that I got to work on every day is like an active dream. It's just a real pleasure and a treat

to get into something like this and work on it with somebody as intelligent as David

and with the cast that I have. What was it like going back in rehearsal

We going to Broadway now and we back in the rehearsal room What was that like It was so cool It felt like a completely different experience this time We had a lot of time to really go deeper and judge everything and solidify all these relationships and moments

And visually, it's even more stunning than before. So it's been very cool to have another shot at it

You don't expect from the workshop to the off-Broadway to the, like, it's not, it doesn't happen every day

So I'm trying to be present and mindful of that. And the fact that I get to do it with these people

This is an all-star cast. It's an all-star team, a creative team to die for

I literally couldn't ask for a better one. These people speak my language

I speak their language. We're here together. We're doing it. Couldn't be better

What's made this so special for you? Because you've worked on many wonderful projects

What's made this one so special? I think for me, many things

One of them is getting to work with David Kramer again. We worked together some 13 years ago in Bolshe

Boston. Being here, you know, I'm based in Boston, and so having this be my Broadway debut

is just an incredible, incredible thing. And I've been a big fan of Joshua Harmon for a long time

And just to get to be in this production with these beautiful artists and my co-stars are all

incredible. So I think it's just so many ingredients that I'm walking on air. Yeah

It's all the people who are a part of it. Like, I am an actor

I've been an actor for a while since I was a kid, and to be in a room and in a play with all these talented actors

and to watch them work every day and to watch David work every day. It's so cool

Well, I'm really thrilled to be here doing this. I love this project, as I told you, early on

but I didn't know how much I was going to love this project when we saw it out of the last time

This group of people just kicks out They amazing one on top of the other on top of the other Everybody in this is a star I mean not like that but they just they come out they

deliver, they reach down, and they all know how to do comedy. They all know how to be in the

moment. It's really, it's been one of the most joyful experiences I've ever had, and it's right

up there for me with a lucky guy, which was a similarly

great ensemble. You know, though Tom, Hanks was arguably the guy in it, but it was an ensemble

and he always treated it as an ensemble. George C. Wolf always treated it that way. So, and

the same thing here with David. This is I mean, there are people who have much, much bigger roles

than I do. Nobody's been treated any differently in terms of the amount of thought and attention that's gone into what we're doing and the amount that

we've put into what we're doing. So I'm really, I'm so impressed with this group

I've been doing this work for over 50 years now, and this is one of the best experiences

I've ever had. And by the way, I'm right across the street from where I did democracy back in 2007

It was a different name then. It wasn't the Lena Horn yet. Brooks Atkinson

That's right. Yeah. It's just been an incredible season so far with amazing audiences

who want to be back seeing theater and seeing great plays. And that's what Chris and I want to be giving them

And it's a joy to be watching these audiences, listening to them and seeing, as you describe

real diversity within the audience and real conversation going on about both of the plays

that we've done so far this season. It's amazing because it's about family

And so you have just multi-generational, and you have that represented in the audience as we come together