"Birthday Candles," was such a success at the Detroit Public Theater.

It was set to open on Broadway in New York City this week.

The pandemic has delayed everything, but it's a perfect opportunity to hear how it all happened from the Detroit Public Theater producers, the director and the playwright who has Michigan roots.

Also coming up on the show, Peter Worf, from WRCJ talks to the president of the University Musical Society, and then a salute to the doctors, nurses and everyone keeping us going from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

That is all coming up on One Detroit.

- Have I wasted my life?

- You're 17 goose.

- In the career of my soul.

How many times have I turned from wonder?

How many moments of grace have I left unnoticed?

How much love have I left unsaid?

- Right joining me now, the three producing artistic directors of the Detroit Public Theater, Sarah Winkler, Sarah Clare Corporandy, and Courtney Burkett.

Ladies, it's great to see you.

- Great to see you.

- Thank you for having us.

- It's so good to see you.

- Oh, you must be all missing your crew, your theater, your actors.

Courtney, what has this been like so far?

- Well we miss the artists a lot.

But we really missed the audience.

It's really hard to not have the opportunity to invite people in and gather and tell these stories and have these profound experiences that people have in the theater.

This kind of exploration of our shared humanity is what we try to really do.

And just to know that, we can't do that right now.

And we don't know exactly when we're going to be able to do that again.

We had a really exciting spring plan to Detroit Public Theater.

We know that we're gonna come through this and we will be able to invite people back in.

But it's hard to do without.

- Yeah and Sarah Clare, I think people are just looking for any kind of shared experience online, using technology, listening to people read their poetry, streaming music.

What have you been kind of gravitating towards?

- I've been reading plays solo, but it's always great to peek in and see what's out there and I think it's a great opportunity for a lot of artists that don't get a lot of visibility, to all have a platform to share their work.

And so that's been fun to investigate across the nation and the world really.

- Yeah, and Sarah has, has it been hard to not look ahead and say, "Oh gosh, we could do that down the road," or start exploring some new things too.

- It has been, but at the same time, we've been looking down the road.

So, we have a couple of really exciting ideas for when it is safe to gather again, that will hopefully take into account a new reality and a changed reality.

And, and we're we're really looking forward to down the road.

Our play, "Birthday Candles," opening on Broadway in the fall, - And that really was what the celebration was supposed to be this month, the "Birthday Candles."

You had the world premiere in spring of 2018.

The Detroit Public Theater did.

And it was supposed to open this month right around this time, right on Broadway, starring Debra Messing.

Courtney, let me start with you.

Talk to us a little bit about "Birthday Candles," and everything that kind of ramped up to what the performance was supposed to be this spring.

- We commissioned Noah Haidle.

He is a very accomplished playwright who's had multiple plays produced off Broadway and across the country.

He was living in Detroit and he became a fan of Detroit Public Theater early on and joined our board of directors.

And so we commissioned him to write a play.

We did a workshop and spent a few weeks with that great company and really developed the play.

And then we did the world premiere at Detroit Public Theater in our third season and Vivienne Benesch came in and directed it and it was just a really beautiful production.

- [Lady] I wish you so many beautiful hours.

Risk your hearts.

Find your place in the universe.

You do that for me.

- [Girl] I promise.

- And with me now is Vivienne Benesch.

She is the director of "Birthday Candles."

Vivienne, it's good to see you.

How ya doing in New York?

- Lovely to see you and, you know, doing okay.

- Let's talk about the extraordinary journey of "Birthday Candles," and how you first came to direct it at the Detroit Public Theater where it had its world premiere.

- Well, it goes back even before that, in terms of my connection.

Sarah Clare Corporandy is and was, under my time at the Chautauqua Theater Company.

I was the artistic director of the Chautauqua Theater Company, and she was the managing director there, before going to Detroit, and so she actually came to me and said, Detroit Public Theater wants to commission our first work.

Love what they were committing to, for a young theater like Detroit Public Theater to commit to a new arc like that, and to seeing it through.

What is rare, and I was honored to be part of that act.

And so we then started to sort of get to dream about it as a production for Detroit Public Theater.

When I talk about the play, as a poetic souffle, I constantly talk about "Birthday Candles", as in terms of it's buoyancy, you have to get the right consistency for it.

All the recipe metaphors are so apt in it.

It is delicate, it is sweet, but it's got savory in it, it's got comedy, it's got tragedy.

- Then to be able to take it to Broadway, and the path that you are able to go on is not an easy one, and it doesn't happen for every playwright, and it doesn't happen for every director.

Describe what that experience is then taking it from the intimacy of the Detroit Public Theater, and then bringing it to a larger level.

- So you're so right.

We feel so blessed at every level, even in this pause right now.

There's such belief in the project, that it will out.

It will out to it's large debut at whatever point that happens.

But, believing in the product so much that that was created at DPT, we knew I know Noah and his representation, his agents sort of sent it out broadly and people unsurprisingly, were excited, but we know that that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Actually getting to production is so rare and first, there's so many things that have to come together.

We had the very smart idea.

When Noah and I were talking, it was actually him.

He said, "You're good friends "with Debra Messing, aren't you?"

And I was like, "Yeah, she was my classmate "at graduate school, for acting."

And, I literally went, "I can't believe I haven't thought of that.

"That's brilliant."

(laughing) She is this woman, or an esteemed like, so I called her up and we had lunch.

And in the middle of lunch, I was like, I know you get thousands of scripts.

I know everyone pitches you.

- Here comes the pitch, right.

- Here comes the pitch.

There's this project that I think, you just have to read it, tell me what you think.

And you know, then I expected not to hear from her for many months.

But actually, within a week, she texted me and said, "Oh my God, what a beautiful play.

"If they'll have me, I'd love to do it."

So all of those things sort of fitting together and going in like this, you know, the germ of an idea from an ambitious and gutsy theater company like Detroit Public Theater to Broadway is where I believe this play is gonna go on to touch people in every language and become sort of a new classic for us, but that it's story and it's heart started in Detroit and takes place in Michigan is just like a wonderful detail.

- Lift my dad towards the infinite not so much.

Instead, it's like, well, I passed my physics test.

Do people think I'm funny or do they laugh out of pity?

All the time, a quiet voice in my mind whispering, you're not good enough.

You're not good enough.

- You visit Ernestine at many of her birthdays throughout her life.

Every single human can find something in this play that relates to their family or themselves or some sort of personal emotional triumph, or tragedy that they've dealt with.

And one of the treasures I think for us, was to watch our audience watch the show, even when we went to the Goodman to hear the readings, and there are about 500 people in the audience.

And, it was the first time they were hearing it.

And their reactions were boisterous and loving.

The belief that the three of us had with Noah, and the relationship that we had with Noah and with Vivienne, and how we take care of each other in the work.

To watch that, and the thought that so many more people are gonna be able to see that play, makes us so joyful.

And the thought that that play was born in Detroit is even more special.

- [Man] I can't do this anymore.

- Stay.

Stay.

- What do you think it is specifically that resonated with a lot of people at this play?

Let's be honest, not every play that someone writes makes it to Broadway.

- The details and specifics of the characters aren't so intense that, there are more about generalized.

They're like a character in quotes, like a dad or a son or something like that rather than the intense, nitty gritty autobiographical or backstory stuff that has in most plays.

This one though, I think in that way because it is a little more general that people can see themselves in it, a little easier than some of the other plays.

- Sarah kind of explain for people that, "Lightning in a Bottle," to be able to have a production like this and to then see it go forward.

- It is beyond anything we had ever dreamed or imagined.

And to have the director who directed our production of it, also be experiencing her Broadway premiere and to have it to be known as Broadway premiere.

And our composer from Detroit Public Theaters.

Production is composing the music for Broadway.

- Denying human nature?

- I'm confused.

- That's obvious.

- I'm not asking you to travel through this world, I'm just asking you to the prom.

- Is there anything else that you want to share about this production and, you know, kind of the nature of, "when we all come out of this," - The neatest thing about doing theater maybe as an adult is that you're getting together with a bunch of talented people and playing like you would as a child.

And so you literally you have, like summer camp type friendships immediately.

And having done this, you know, higher than low levels, different levels of exposure to things that matter, and I think we find this now in all of our lives, the things that matter are the connections that we make, and the emotions and love that we've shared between people.

So if this play, this is it, you know, I've gotten to be around my friends and I've gotten to be, and help out Detroit Public Theater, which was my aim in the beginning.

So, in summary, I have no regrets.

- So it's really important to us that the plays and the work that we do at Detroit Public Theater is representative of our community and that people who live in Detroit and work in Detroit and our Detroiters, see themselves reflected on our stage.

- To watch all of these beautiful artists around the same piece, have the same experience, of the pinnacle of theatrical excitement and joy is beyond anything.

- And just giving artists the opportunity to connect nationally.

So that's a big part of what we wanted to do, was kind of cross pollinate and make sure that Detroit artists were getting exposed to national directors and designers and other artists and create opportunities for artists to work.

We're really proud of the artists and the opportunities that we have been able to connect and create.

But we're most proud of the audience that is the feel seen and feels, you know, it loves coming to the theater, so to give people a place where they can come and experience world class art in their own community.

And understand that we are here for them.

It's a privilege to be able to be creating for our community and be in conversation with our community.

- But Courtney, how would you describe the arts and culture scene in Detroit right now?

And obviously, we're in a very strange and bizarre time, and not being able to connect with live performance, whether it be music, whether it be plays, - Yeah, it's tremendous.

I mean, I think we have a lot of really incredible artists to work here and who wanna work here and passionate audiences.

I think that, you know, there are institutions in the city that are giants.

And then there's tiny little companies and art individual artists doing really incredible work.

So we want to expose the other theater artists who are here as well.

The city has embraced us and we're really lucky to be in the position that we're in and wanna make sure that that is shared.

- Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Midwest, no thanks.

There's the world.