Chicago Tribune
- Highly Recommended
"...Enter the reignited Gillian Theatre at Writers Theatre in Glencoe and you’re met with a blazingly sunny light cue from the designer Jason Lynch, likely a stark contrast with the gloomy fall evening outside. The show “Every Brilliant Thing” can be set wherever a theater wants it to be set, and the director Kimberly Senior basically picked a North Shore backyard. Or so it feels, and this beautiful theater piece by Duncan Macmillan happens to be all about how everything feels."
Chicago Sun Times
- Highly Recommended
"...Our narrator, embodied in this classy, gently emotional Writers Theatre production by Jessie Fisher, tells the story of growing up with a suicidal mother. The play begins with the first such attempt when the narrator was 7 years old, picked up at school by her father and taken to the hospital, where she waited outside her mother’s room with some kind older people who gave her snacks."
Daily Herald
- Highly Recommended
"...Subject matter notwithstanding, “Every Brilliant Thing” reminds us that, as Fisher’s narrator observes, things can get better. In that respect, Writers’ production serves as a balm for troubled times, sustained by Fisher’s truly exceptional performance."
Chicago Reader
- Highly Recommended
"...The show doesn't shy away from sadness and grief (and at one point, offers some helpful advice for how to frame discussions around suicide). But Fisher's beguiling performance-aided by audience volunteers who stand in for the narrator's dad, school therapist, college lit professor, and spouse-creates a room for us to collectively think about what lights our way when it feels like the entire world is blinding us. "We have to imagine a future that's better than our past," she says at one point. A tall order these days, but a good reminder that getting through it together with compassionate souls is the starting point."
Around The Town Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...Jessie Fisher is vivacious and engaging in this cleverly conceived and remarkably well-acted one-hander "Every Brilliant Thing." Cultivating an attitude of gratitude is a major theme in this play, written by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe. It is also the story of what it means to be a child whose parent suffers from suicidal ideation and is periodically in and out of the hospital. This creatively inspired and nicely accomplished show navigates between joyfulness and sadness, often at the same moment."
Buzz Center Stage
- Highly Recommended
"..."Every Brilliant Thing," places unusual demands on its lead character, Narrator. Jessie Fisher delivers a carefully calibrated performance from a comedic script that is deceivingly simple, but deeply emotional and upon reading it afterward, I saw that it is beautifully structured, as well."
Third Coast Review
- Highly Recommended
"...This production, directed by Kimberly Senior, features the fabulously droll Jessie Fisher as the narrator, recounting a story of social contagion and her childhood trauma: where it came from, how it grew and how she came to understand it. Patrolling around the circular, comfortable well-lit living room/backyard set of couches and tables (designed by Izumi Inaba, who also curated Fisher’s simple jeans, blouse and boots), the storyteller recounts creating a list of good things when she was a wee child grappling with a sick mother. The list had a few rules: no repetition, generally wonderful and few materialistic items."
Chicago Theater and Arts
- Highly Recommended
"...Directed by Kimberly Senior, Fisher is brilliant and so is the play. Written by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe it likely touches many lives as it balances depression with hope."
Chicago On Stage
- Highly Recommended
"...Every Brilliant Thing, Duncan MacMillan’s poignant, humorous, and just plain wonderful look at dealing with the darkness in life (now playing at Writers Theatre), is one of the best shows of the year. I’d be stunned if anyone could watch it without becoming emotionally entwined in its story and relating it to their own lives."
Chicago Culture Authority
- Recommended
"...Every Brilliant Thing, a moving interactive play now onstage at Writers Theatre, has its roots in a 15-minute monologue Duncan Macmillan wrote for an actor friend in 2006. Now a one-act of around 70 minutes that debuted in 2013, the piece tells the story of a woman who started a list of wonderful things worth living for as a child after her mother attempted suicide."
Evanston Roundtable
- Highly Recommended
"...It would seem unlikely, more like impossible, that Every Brilliant Thing, now on stage at Writers Theatre, could be a fun and entertaining theatrical experience when the overall theme is depression. Yet Every Brilliant Thing is fun and entertaining and heartwarming."
Splash Magazine
- Highly Recommended
"...It's a play. It's an interactive experience. It's an inspiring evening of theatre in its most profound sense.
"Every Brilliant Thing" is an opportunity to participate of the journey of a little girl as she grows up with a suicidal mother who spends her days in a deep depression. To infuse her mother's life with joy, the 7-year-old creates a list of all things she knows that make life wonderful."
NewCity Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...It was the moment that Jessie Fisher came up to me and told me she liked my Mickey Mouse cardigan. Or perhaps the moment that she chose my spouse out of everyone else to play the part of her character's romantic interest. Even more likely, it was looking around at the other audience members' faces throughout the production of "Every Brilliant Thing"-they were feeling everything I was feeling."
