“I think we’re all prepared to [lock in] because there’s a vulnerability within yourself every time you step out on stage,” she says. “You are in charge of what you’re doing. But really, and especially in this show, but in theater in general, it’s about taking care of the people around you. And if you’re not present for others, you’re not going to be present for yourself. We look each other in the eyes before every show, we tap in, we say, ‘I got your back.’ We have a little moment where we just look at each other and we’re like, ‘See you out there.’”
All Nighter taps into every possible corner of what it means to be a young woman in her early twenties, exploring narratives of sexual assault, friendship betrayal, fear of the unknown, and sexual identity.
Scott and Gallagher’s characters are both figuring out what it means to be queer in 2014, and Rose’s character is navigating the nuanced emotions attached to sexual assault and how it can shape a survivor. For the Bottoms actress, playing Lizzy is an honor she doesn’t take lightly.
“It feels like a very soft exchange of the truth with my performance and the audience in a way that I’ve never experienced before around any kind of acting I’ve ever done,” Liu says. “When I enter into those sections of the play, I feel like I am really sitting with everyone in the audience around that experience and my own, and it feels like a little part of me, every night, is a little bit healed by that.”
