Bess Wohl and Kristolyn Lloyd Discuss LIBERATION on CNN’s AMANPOUR

Playwright Bess Wohl, along with actor Kristolyn Lloyd, recently joined CNN’s Amanpour to discuss the hit play Liberation, which is currently playing on Broadway. During the interview, the duo shed light on the importance of the story, which bounces between 1970 and the modern era.

“I really felt like I didn’t want to make something that was just a history lesson or that was just historical. Even though those parts of the play are important, I wanted to put the past in conversation with right now…” explained Wohl.

The play follows a consciousness group of women from that time, a real-life history that opened Lloyd’s eyes to the bravery required to speak up and fight for equal rights as a woman.

“I learned how brave it was to be a part of [a group.] How high the risk was to show up to these groups every day and to even hold these beliefs, these ideologies that women are humans, they’re real people who deserve equal rights.” Check out the full interview below, which takes a deeper look into the themes in the play, and also features a clip from the production. 

Liberation comes to Broadway following its world premiere earlier this year at Roundabout Theatre Company, where it earned ecstatic reviews and won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play. The production stars the original Off-Broadway company, who were honored by both the Drama Desk and the NY Drama Critic’s Circle for Best Ensemble Performance. It is playing through Sunday, February 1 at the James Earl Jones Theatre.

1970s, Ohio. Lizzie gathers a group of women to talk about changing their lives, and the world. What follows is a necessary, messy, and bitingly funny exploration of what it means to be free, and to be a woman. In Liberation, Lizzie’s daughter steps into her mother’s memory—into the unfinished revolution she once helped ignite—and searches the past to find the answer for herself.