All Of It with Alison Stewart

Episode: "Liberation" On Broadway
Original Air Date: October 24, 2025
Podcast: All Of It | Host: Alison Stewart, WNYC

Episode Overview

This episode of All Of It delves into Liberation, a new Broadway play by Bess Wall that dramatizes a 1970s Ohio women's consciousness-raising group, exploring themes of feminism, intergenerational dynamics, race, and friendship. Alison Stewart talks to playwright Bess Wall and actors Susanna Flood (Lizzie) and Kristolyn Lloyd (Celeste) about the play’s development, characters, and the personal and political resonance of its subject matter.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Play’s Structure and Tone

• Dual Timelines and Breaking the Fourth Wall: The story centers on Lizzie, who both organizes the group in the 1970s and addresses the audience directly in the present, blending past consciousness-raising with present-day reflection.
• Immersive Opening:
  • Susanna Flood explains how the play disrupts theatrical conventions by starting casually with her directly engaging the audience, making them feel part of the living context of the story (02:46).
  • This approach invites audience participation, blurring the lines between audience and performance, a motif sustained throughout the play:

    “It sets up a conversational mode. And I think that… when we get to the later revelations in the play, people feel that they can talk back to the play throughout.” (02:46, Susanna Flood)

Character Motivations and Dual Roles

• Lizzie’s Duality:
  • Flood describes portraying Lizzie as a through-line rather than separate roles:

    “I actually don’t experience them as different, to tell you the truth… it feels like one continuous role.” (05:51, Susanna Flood)

  • Bess Wall shares that starting the play with Lizzie speaking to the audience 'cracked it open' creatively.
• Celeste’s Return Home:
  • Celeste, a Black grad student from New York, returns to care for her mother and seeks community amid racial and generational tensions.
  • Kristolyn Lloyd reflects on Celeste’s motivation:

    “I need something to keep me going. I need some remnant of my New York life and myself, who I discovered in New York after leaving Ohio. I need that or she’s gonna drown… I can understand why Celeste gets to the point where she’s like, ‘I don’t care that they’re all white women. I am going to this group. I need to find my people.’” (07:53, Kristolyn Lloyd)

  • The intersection of race, care work, and solidarity is central to Celeste’s arc.

Themes of Motherhood & Feminist Legacy

• Roots in Autobiography and Feminist History:
  • Bess Wall drew inspiration from her mother’s work at Ms. Magazine, capturing the spirit but not the literal events of her upbringing:

    “I really idolized them… And I think that kind of sense of possibility and of activism that I learned from them was something I really wanted to represent in the play.” (10:11, Bess Wall)

  • The play grapples with the limitations and possibilities for women across generations, asking if we can see mothers as people beyond their familial roles.
• Personal Role Models:
  • Both Flood and Lloyd discuss the real women who shaped their lives and inspired their characterizations—grandmothers, mothers, and formative teachers.

Friendship, Solidarity, and Complications

• Friendship as the Glue:
  • Wall reveals that while writing, she discovered Liberation was as much about women’s friendships as any political theme:

    “We really discovered in rehearsal how much this play is about friendship between women… there’s a sort of loneliness that’s being soothed by the group and a feeling of solidarity.” (17:05, Bess Wall)

• Intersectional Feminism:
  • Lloyd articulates Celeste’s complexity—navigating between Black and white feminist spaces, the burden of being "othered," and the unique risks and sacrifices Black women face within activist movements (09:02, 18:11).

The Creative Process and Radical Choices

• Development and Ensemble Trust:
  • Audiences are fascinated by the company’s trust and the play’s raw emotional intensity, much of which is credited to director Whitney White creating a “visionary” safe space (19:11, Bess Wall).
• On-Stage Nudity:
  • A pivotal, historically-rooted nude scene underscores trust and vulnerability, handled with care via an intimacy coordinator:

    “It was a sort of important and very brave part of the process for everybody. And I feel like in some ways it’s the heart of the play.” (20:24, Bess Wall)

Audience Engagement and Hopes for Impact

• Inviting Conversation and Change:
  • Both Lloyd and Wall hope viewers reflect deeply on their own beliefs and relationships after seeing the play:

    “I hope they’re having conversations about who they are… and how they want to carry that into their everyday life.” (22:28, Kristolyn Lloyd)

  • Wall adds:

    “So much of this play is about, like, how true can you be to yourself and how truthful can you be in your relationships and can you have the conversations that matter before it’s too late?” (23:04, Bess Wall)

• Reframing Motherhood:
  Flood finishes with a call to recognize the heroism in motherhood as societal leadership, not just domestic labor:

  “I think there is a level of heroism in that... to think of motherhood as a kind of passive inside the home thing, but that the actual heroism of it… I want that to be claimed as a real positive, forward footed value.” (23:43, Susanna Flood)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Susanna Flood on audience engagement:

  “It sets up a conversational mode... people feel that they can talk back to the play throughout.” (02:46)

• Kristolyn Lloyd on Celeste’s motivation:

  “I don’t care that they're all white women. I am going to this group. I need to find my people.” (07:53)

• Bess Wall on themes of the play:

  “Can we see our mothers as full human beings? That’s a conversation that the play is really in dialogue with and that forms the heart of this piece for me.” (10:11)

• Bess Wall on friendship and solidarity:

  “They start to become the only people they can tell certain things to… there’s a sort of loneliness... and a feeling of solidarity.” (17:05)

• Kristolyn Lloyd on feminist identity:

  “I think she believes in putting in the work and taking the risk… because Black women know that the sacrifice is necessary, it’s not as scary.” (18:11)

• On the play’s radical onstage nudity:

  “It was a sort of important and very brave part of the process for everybody. And I feel like in some ways it’s the heart of the play.” (20:24, Bess Wall)

• Flood on motherhood as heroism:

  “I’m not talking about a sentimental version… I’m talking about an actual chivalric going out into the world and doing something concrete... I want nobody to feel emasculated by owning that.” (23:43)

Important Timestamps

• 00:08 – Alison Stewart sets the scene; intro to Liberation
• 02:46 – Susanna Flood discusses opening the play and audience interaction
• 05:47 – Bess Wall on shifting drafts and finding the play’s unique form
• 07:53 – Kristolyn Lloyd explores Celeste’s return home & intersectionality
• 10:11 – Bess Wall on autobiographical inspiration
• 13:41 – Guests reflect on real-life role models for their characters
• 17:05 – Bess Wall on the importance of friendship in the play
• 18:11 – Kristolyn Lloyd on Celeste’s brand of feminism
• 19:11 – Wall praises director Whitney White and ensemble process
• 20:24 – Discussion of on-stage nudity and its significance
• 22:28 – Kristolyn Lloyd’s hopes for audience takeaway
• 23:04 – Bess Wall’s hopes for fostering deeper conversations
• 23:43 – Susanna Flood reframes motherhood as heroism

Summary

This episode is a rich, lively exploration of Liberation, both as a theatrical work and as a catalyst for cross-generational, intersectional feminist dialogue. The conversation is candid, personal, and deeply engaged in the social and emotional nuances of women’s lives, camaraderie, and transformations—inviting listeners and future audience members to question, empathize, and continue the conversation in their own communities.