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Video: Meet the 2023 Tony-Nominated Directors of a Play
May 17, 2024
In this video, watch as four of the six Tony nominees for Best Direction of a Play check in with Richard Ridge ahead of the big night.
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It's all wild, you know? Like, who would have thought that the show that we did off-Broadway would have this momentum
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and have this life? It's just beyond anything I could have dreamed. You got a Tony pin
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I did, yes. Yeah, I've seen these on TV! Ha, ha, ha, ha
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What's made this so special for you with working on this? Just my collaboration with James
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James is an extraordinary human being, a great writer, and for us to be locking arms all this way
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it's, like, it's thrilling. And so many nominations for your company, what that means to you
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It means a lot because everyone worked so hard, you know? Even the folks who didn't get nominated
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that company, the fact that we could keep them all together from off-Broadway to Broadway meant so much
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because they are the stars of the show, so it's thrilling. So here we are, it's Tony Day, and you've got a Tony pin
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I do have a Tony pin, it's very sweet. What is today like for you? I mean, is it all surreal
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It's very surreal, and it's very lovely because, you know, we so often talk about theater community
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Family, and then to turn up here, everyone's so ecstatic for everyone
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You know, it's like the best when you come together as an extended family
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We don't often do that because we're all in our own little kind of puddles of productions
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So it's very, yeah, it's lovely. Talk about the wonderful show that you're nominated for
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Cost of Living, Martina Mayock's Cost of Living, which is just the most gorgeous play
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I have loved it from, literally, I read the first three pages
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and I was, I want to do this play. And it's been a journey through workshops
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through Williamstown, through MTC Off-Broadway, and then MTC Sam Friedman. So it's really dear to my heart
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and it's so of this moment, you know, where we all feel so separate and stressed
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and maybe don't have a great deal of tolerance for each other. Little loneliness, maybe, in the midst of all this
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And Cost of Living was just all about that. How we find each other, how we find our humanity
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So it was, yeah, it was a wonderful experience. How special is this for you, this nomination
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It's incredible. It's like an onion. There are layers of reckoning. I keep waking up and being like, oh my gosh
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I've been nominated for a Tony Award. It's just really amazing. Talk about the show you're nominated from
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Ain't No Mo'. Like the show that heard around the world, you know
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The show that sparked a movement and got everyone to think more deeply
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about how do we program radical work for Broadway audiences. And just what it meant to you for the audiences
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that did come to this show, the joy you brought them. Oh my goodness
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Standing in the back of the house and watching people stand up and scream and clap
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and be engaged in this play in ways that probably never ever happened
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in a Belasco theater before. I'll never ever forget that. You've got a Tony pin
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How exciting is this? It's so exciting. We started making the show in church basements
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with bamboo and cardboard. So to be on Broadway is a surprise and a massive honor
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What's made this so special for you with directing the show? That it's a show about imagination
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and family and magic. And it's a thing you have to really experience live
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to understand. You have brought a whole new audience to the theater
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People who love the book. People maybe never been here before. I mean, experience something live
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What that means to you? We need new audiences for theater to survive
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And it's really exciting. We've got 17 people making their Broadway debut
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in this show and they're all extraordinary actors. And I'm so proud I get to work with them
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And I mean, a lot of nominations today, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing
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There's so many designers and creatives who are really at the top of their game
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It's like a layer cake. There's the language and the music and the puppetry and the sound and the video
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And when they all tee up together, that's when they make the magic happen
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Take me back to the young Max. Were you an actor first? I was a hyperactive kid
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And so my mom told me to enter a young person's playwriting competition when she was putting
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my sister to bed. And she came down and the kitchen was drawn with unicorns all over it
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And I made some kids play about unicorns. So, you know, that's how I started
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So what would the older Max tell the younger Max now? I think I believed it was all possible for a long time
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And I think it was a much harder part in the 20s when I was trying to do fringe theater
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and living in my parents' spare room. So I think I'd try and tell the middle Max
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that the dreams of the young Max could be realized by the older Max
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And you have a Tony pin. I know, it's amazing. It's still on. Great, it hasn't fallen off
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