The Brightest Thing in the World by Leah Nanako Winkler

Starring Michele Selene Ang, Megan Hill and Katherine Romans

Scenic Design by Cat Raynor

Costume Design by Travis Chinick

Lighting Design by Graham Zellers

Sound Design by Emily Duncan Wilson

Production Stage Manager: Andrew Petrick

Assistant Stage Manager: Charlie Lovejoy

Dramaturg: Lily Haje

Wig Designer: Matthew Armentrout

Vocal Coach: Grace Zandarski

All photos taken by Joan Marcus for the Yale Repertory Theatre 2022 production

PRESS:

“The Brightest Thing in the World,” Leah Nanako Winkler’s potent new play at Yale Repertory Theater, is itself a bit of an ambush, though a more gradual one. Beginning as a rom-com with all the trimmings, it intensifies into a pair of love stories — each golden in its way, each fraught with quiet fear. Directed by Margot Bordelon, this is ultimately a brokenhearted tale.

- Laura Collins-Hughes, The New York Times

“Director Margot Bordelon, who graduated from the Yale School of Drama a decade ago and now specializes in directing new works, finds lots of ways to complement Winkler’s rapidly shifting styles with equally creative staging.”

- Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant

“Director Margot Bordelon does an astute job of staging this production and she has elicited fantastic performances from her three member cast….From beginning to end, this show feels authentic and truthful and director Margot Bordelon guides this work expertly and with a great deal of humanity….Bordelon also does a great job with her design team.”

- Zander Opper

“Bordelon is a nimble director, and designers Cat Raynor (scenic design), Graham Zellers (lighting design), and Emily Duncan Wilson (sound design) turn the stage into their playground, telegraphing with the tools at their disposal the physical significance of touch, of sex, of feeling in one’s body, or not in it at all…. It is often a visually sumptuous work: set pieces move and glow, bouquets of flowers spring up and fall from the sky, fireworks stretch and sing across the stage, and whole universes reveal themselves one at a time.”

- Lucy Gellman, New Haven Arts

“Margot Bordelon, a New York-based director whose specializes in mounting new works, comes to Yale Rep with an impressive list of directorial credits from regional theaters across America including Playwrights Horizons, Cherry Lane, Berkeley Rep, Primary Stages, the David Geffen School of Drama, The Public and the Roundabout Theatre Company. Here, she grabs hold of Winkler's play text and shakes it up using definitive beats, rhythms, pauses and skips that give "The Brightest Thing in the World" a strong sense of identity, definition, thrust and animation.

She also paints an interesting, embodied picture of lesbian life that translates universally regardless of one's life choices, beliefs and sexuality. On that note, Bordelon creates a pleasurable buzz or hook up, if you prefer, that is paced and readied with connection, spark captivation and attraction.”

- Jim Ruocco, From the Desk of Jim R

“In a series of quick scene resets, playfully staged by Director Margot Bordelon, the women strike up a friendship that develops into a tentative, then all-in romantic connection…

The three actors - Katherine Romans (Lane), Michele Selene Ang (Steph), Megan Hill (Della) - have a solid, believable chemistry. Sometimes they are overly expressive and loud, but these are sensitive, somewhat damaged individuals. Ms. Bordelon, rightfully so, occasionally steers the portrayals in an over-the-top manner as a statement of the character’s exultations to the heavens that they are vibrantly alive.”

- Stuart Brown, Stu on Broadway

“Sweetness and light… One of the delights of this show, for me, was seeing a production written, directed and acted entirely by women… And it’s not because The Brightest Thing has a feminist message that somehow requires it to be a production of and by women. This is a universal story, just as stories of and by men used to be considered exclusively universal.”

- Kathy Leonard Czepiel, The Daily Nutmeg