Michael Arden

reality.

We are saying, this is Ben Platt.

He is an actor.

He is playing Leo Frank.

This is what Leo Frank looks like.

Here's a real picture of that.

Ben Platt is going to say things and do things that Leo Frank did.

And then you, because you have been given all these ingredients that are quite disparate, some real, some manufactured, you then are creating a story and an entire different show is going on in your head as the audience than what we are doing.

That is personal to you and therefore your emotional connection to it is going to be so much greater than anything we could have presented in a sort of naturalistic or opulent way.

It's like a fascinating thing.

It was the way in which audiences experienced the story was as much a part of the production as the story.

Absolutely.

And varied from person to person based upon their entire life.

I think people were so emotionally engaged by it because they got to bring themselves to it in a way we don't always get to when we enter a more finished proscenium arch.

Your productions repeatedly return to people trying to connect across distance, difference, or isolation.

And nowhere is that more apparent than in the play, maybe, Happy Ending.

Which is, I have to say, without fawning too much, really one of my most favorite plays I've ever seen.

And I am a Broadway fanatic.

I see a lot of shows and have been my very first show I ever saw.

My dad took me to see the original production of Chorus Line.