Shakespeare Theatre Company

You know, my size of my height and my personality and because I dance give me the roles that are like, I'll just use it as an example.

I recently did Guys and Dolls in D.C. at the Shakespeare Theater Company.

And my greatest compliment that I received from my friends was when they found out I was doing the show, they go, well, which role are you playing? are you playing Sarah or are you playing Adelaide? And I was like, that is the nicest thing anyone could ever say to me because where I would love to live vocally is Sarah.

But what I'm always cast as and I love playing is Adelaide, right? It's like that type of role.

We'll get into how she prioritizes her writing in this episode.

She has won a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other awards, and has a background in literature and performance studies, including previously serving as the associate director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. She is the author of several books, including Radical Vision, her biography of Lorraine Hansberry.

In this episode, we talk about how that book led to her new book, Freedom's Gate.

I was also eager to hear about how she translates visual and audio performances to the page and how she brings to life the texture and uncertainty of what it was like to be these women when they were just figuring out life in New York before they became the icons that we recognize today.

In your remarkable career, you also have a background in theater as an academic, but as a dramaturg, as associate director of the Shakespeare Theater Company and other great things.

How does that work shape the way that you think about writing a book like this?

So I'm so grateful for my time at the Shakespeare Theatre Company.

Before I moved to Washington, D.C., I lived in New Hampshire and was writing then and really launching my career.

For example, the most famous one is the aptly named ghost light.

A light that remains on stage when the theatre is empty well there are practical safety reasons for this right but as the Shakespeare Theatre Company notes quote the lights are said to ward away mischievous spirits however the light also serve as a guide for the ghosts that are believed to haunt the theatre these theatre goals are not seen as malicious, but rather they are goals that are to be kept happy that their home is lit.

End quote.

So what sort of precautions, right, do you do when you stage Charita Hantu?

Mm-hmm

... is at Shakespeare Theater Company early next year.

Oh.

Um, I'm looking at my shelf right now 'cause I, I don't throw stuff away.

Because there was some question would we lose it, and we actually did perform AOI last season at the end of the season by transforming our, our, our rehea- one of our rehearsal rooms into a really beautiful small theater, 200-seat theater.

Uh, we then continue on, and we're being hosted by the Shakespeare Theatre Company.

Uh, Harman Hall, which is a wonderful 800-seat theater in downtown DC, uh, has a great acoustic, and we will be performing Mozart's opera Idomeneo but in a rather different version because everything this season is a different version in a way.

Mm.

He's won awards from the Screen Actors Guild, the BAFTAs, the Emmys, the Golden Globes, the Lucille Lortel, and the Olivier Awards, among many others.

Brian is currently starring as Johann Sebastian Bach in The Score, directed by Trevor Nunn at the Shakespeare Theatre Company here in Washington, DC.

His co-star in The Score is also his wife, Nicole Ansari-Cox.

Nicole got her start acting in German television and film, and studied at the Actors Studio in New York.

It was lovely to meet you, Barbara.

[upbeat music] That was Brian and Nicole Ansari Cox interviewed by Barbara Bogaev.

The Score runs at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC until October 25th.

You can find tickets and more information at ShakespeareTheatre.org.

Camilo Linares, He, Him.

Select credits include Theory at Mosaic Theater, Las Hermanas Palacios, Picasso, 2019-2023, Tia Julia y El Escribidor at Gala Hispanic Theater, Company Member, The Comedy of Errors at Shakespeare Theater Company, Professor Woolen's Black Magic Rock Show, Helen Hayes Award Outstanding Production, Frontieres Sends Frontieres at Spooky Action Theater, Laughs in Spanish and Majada at First Stage, Fun Home at Studio Theater, The Day You Begin and Go, Dog Go, Ve Perro Ve at the Kennedy Center, and Oyame the Beautiful at Imagination Stage.

Film credits include Jamais Vous, He is lead vocalist for D.C. salsa band Orquesta Manplesa.

Up next, tropical secrets at Theater J.

Yeah.

Yeah, been to Shakespeare Theater.

I've been to all of them.

Yep.