"but now they would also be tinged by a context in which black dreams were sparked and then doused" Diversity in the American theater is a topic that theater artists and administrators have been having serious (though often ineffective) conversations about for the past 30 years. We've gone through phases of multicultural casting, color-blind casting, casting (insert race) actors in…
Today's New York Times ran an article by Felicia R. Lee about Kerry Washington's role as Olivia Pope in the ABC television series Scandal. Through much of the article Lee wrote about how Washington's portrayal of Pope impacts the often vile (or absent) image of black women in the media. She noted that Washington is only the second black woman…
I was fortunate enough to be able to interview playwright David Lindsay-Abaire for Syracuse Stage's production of Good People. The play is set in his native South Boston, and is about a single mother struggling to support herself and her special needs adult adaughter. Desperate, she reaches out to an old flame who is now a successful doctor, but as we…