Meet Joshua

Joshua Peterson is the founding artistic director of Knoxville’s River & Rail Theatre Company and one of the performers in its upcoming production of Every Brilliant Thing.

We spoke by phone as he drove home from New York City. Our conversation moved through Shakespeare, Knoxville, the unpredictable intimacy of live theatre, and the small things that make us feel safe.

For Joy Scavengers, I ask people to share a little of how they see the world, in the hope that readers might borrow their perspective for a month.

Joshua would like everyone to find: A conversation with a stranger this month. Once you read the interview, you will see just how fitting of a choice that is!

1. What's something small you've noticed this week that brought you joy or a sense of returning to the present moment?

Most of this week I was in New York City, which is not a normal week for me.

When our daughter, Penny, was eight, my wife Amelia had this idea to take our kids on a trip when they turned ten. She took Penny to New York when she was ten, and I just took Eli.

The goal is to take them to things they're interested in. Eli is really into space and science and engineering, and he also loves stories. So we did lots of things like that.

One of my favorite things about being a parent is that they change so quickly that you get to meet them over and over and over again.

I went up to New York a few days before Eli did because I had some work to do. Amelia flew up with him, and we were having dinner the night they arrived. I'd only been away from Eli for three or four days, but he was just laughing at dinner that night, and his laugh is so delightful.

I think Amelia and I have this practice, perhaps not purposefully, of sharing with each other when something delights us about one of our kids.

So we just stopped and talked about how much we love his laugh.

2. How has building River & Rail changed the way you notice Knoxville? And has it changed how you experience other cities?

I certainly notice Knoxville through the lens of running River & Rail.

It's really important to us that we tell stories people find relevant to their lives. I've been doing theatre since I was twelve, and I've seen a lot of wonderful theatre and a lot of really terrible things.

My least favorite kind of theatre is theatre where I didn't need to be there as an audience member. It's clear they didn't need me there. My presence wasn't considered or interacted with, and the experience was really just for the people doing it.

We very much do not do theatre just for ourselves. River & Rail exists to serve our community.

So I absolutely pay attention to the culture in Knoxville—what people talk about and feel and think about. I do that as a practice because I run a business that serves the community in that way.

I also experience theatre culture differently when I leave Knoxville. There are places where theatre is so much more a part of everyday life for a much larger percentage of the population.

I feel a little jealous of those communities when I'm in them, for sure.

3. My husband does sound engineering, and I remember standing beside him at a mixing board during a show. I watched him make a choice that completely changed how the audience heard a singer. I hadn't realized just how much of the experience was shaped by his decisions. What's something people might not realize is an intentional choice made by a director?

The director is responsible for the entire world of the show.

It's the director's job to serve the story, to tell it as best as they can.

With something like Shakespeare, for example, there's a lot of opportunity to set Hamlet in the 1920s, or the 1980s, or exactly when it was written. Those things are the vision and responsibility of the director.

One of the things I love most about producing theatre is that nobody can do it alone. The places that do it best honor the tradition that the best idea in the room wins.

The best directors I know aren't precious about the best ideas being their ideas.

Ultimately, the director is responsible for the decisions. But there's an unlimited number of possibilities in how you present a show.

And the best directors serve the text.

Shakespeare was writing at a time when playwrights didn't write stage directions the way we do today. But if you really pay attention to the lines, he does it in the text itself.

If you have two characters onstage and one of them says, "Don't touch me," they probably shouldn't be standing twenty-five feet away from each other.

That's a crude example, but the best directors don't put their own particular vision on top of the text. They serve the story that's written.

4. Every Brilliant Thing relies so heavily on audience participation. As the performer, what are you paying attention to that helps guide those interactions?

The number one thing is that with this type of show, very similar to improvisational theatre, you have to be present in the moment.

If you're not, it will be very, very clear. People will know you're not present.

What's brilliant about the way Every Brilliant Thing is written is that it brings the audience into the present moment. There are things written into the show that break the ice between the actor and the audience member.

They help bring both of us into a presence, and really a safety, that I think is lovely. It's unlike almost anything else I've ever seen.

A large number of people participate by speaking during the show, but there are five or six who are invited to do a little bit more.

When the audience comes in, we're trying to cast those people.

You don't want them to be shy. They need to consent to playing this game with you, and they need to feel comfortable enough to participate.

But probably even worse is somebody who's too eager.

That's a fine line. I know it was something they had to deal with in the Broadway production, particularly when Daniel Radcliffe was performing. They had to filter out the really eager Harry Potter fans.

5. One of my favorite moments in Every Brilliant Thing is right before the narrator meets Sam. He returns to the audience member who earlier read the line about knowing someone well enough to check your teeth for broccoli. I love that he goes back to that person. What's happening in that moment for you?

It's written into the script, if possible, to go back to the person who read the broccoli line and ask them to check your teeth before you go up and say hello to Sam for the first time.

I think it's really beautiful. First off, it's really smart writing.

Repetition is one of the laws of humor, and bringing that back before the narrator meets his love interest is so smart. It definitely gets a big laugh.

With that one, you just try not to get in the way. You don't need to do much.

6. You mentioned that you and Amelia have three children. What are you trying to teach them to notice, and what have they taught you about noticing?

I think every parent has a lot of fears about being a parent. Failure seems like the stakes are so high.

I think Amelia and I are intentional about trying to get our children to notice social cues of when people are hurting.

There are some people who are just naturally very good at it. Sometimes something needs major remedying, but it's also about the small things.

As far as what they've taught me, there's that common phrase, "Do as I say, not as I do."

All the ways in which I'm a hypocrite—or at least the many ways my hypocrisy shows up in my parenting versus what I allow myself to do—they have subtle and not-so-subtle ways of pointing that out to me.

Before we reached my final question, Joshua returned to something we'd discussed earlier: the moments in Every Brilliant Thing that revisit a previous encounter.

Joshua: You love that moment where he brings back the broccoli. My favorite example of that in the show is when he goes back to Mrs. Patterson.

Mrs. Patterson is the school counselor he goes to when he's seven. And then later, as an adult, he calls her at night and asks her to help him again.

There's a whole conversation in acting about whether an actor needs to feel something in order to perform well, and whether those two things are linked.

For me, there are many times during the show when emotions have bubbled up as I'm performing. I've done it probably twenty-five times now, and it's been different moments.

But the one where he calls Mrs. Patterson is maybe the most consistent one where I get emotional as the performer.

There's a place where the author gives the performer an opportunity for silence, to allow Mrs. Patterson to say something else. The narrator feeds her some affirmations that he's recounting her saying, but then there's an opportunity for the audience member to say something unique and lovely and beautiful.

Sometimes that happens. Sometimes it's just what's scripted that makes me emotional.

I just love that idea of him going back to this place of safety as a child.

7. I always end by asking my Featured Scavenger what they'd like people to look for this month. It could be something ordinary or something more abstract. Another way to think of it might be something you'd add to your own list of brilliant things. What would you choose?

The thing that comes to mind, having just left New York City, is that I think conversations with strangers are really beautiful interactions.

In a city like Knoxville, where we're in our cars when we travel—and in most cities in the South where we don't use public transportation—there are just far fewer opportunities for conversations with strangers.

And I love them.

So I think it would be a great scavenger hunt item:

Find a conversation with a stranger.

Someone you've never met before and probably might never meet again.

Many thanks to Joshua, and the entire team at River & Rail for making this interview happen! Every Brilliant Thing will be running throughout the month of December. Please check it out and all their other productions coming soon. They are working towards a permanent home in Knoxville, you can read more about that here: