Playwright Antoinette Nwandu is Bringing Hope Back to Broadway

As American theater slowly returns following the wrecking ball of the Covid-19 pandemic, the landscape of live, theatrical performance will look very different. In addition to an increasing amount of virtual performances, the past year’s racial reckoning has forced the art form to engage with its ongoing inequities — whether it’s racism among white theater stakeholders or an ongoing legacy of underpaying and overworking employees. Amid the ongoing changes, the Broadway premiere of Pass Over, a play both written and produced by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu, is a story and a way of theater-making that is desperately needed in this ever-evolving industry.

Inspired by Waiting for Godot and the Exodus story from the Bible, Pass Over is a play about two Black men dreaming of the “promised land” and escaping from their street corner. The mounting of Pass Over is historic — it’s the first new production to premiere following Broadway’s Covid shutdown in 2020, and it’s also the first show written by a Black playwright to be shown at the August Wilson Theatre since it was renamed for the venerable writer. For Pass Over’s Broadway debut, a new version of the play will be staged, one that Nwandu says “centers the health, hope, and joy of our audiences, especially Black people.”

Nwandu and her fellow producers have also used Pass Over as an opportunity to set a new standard on Broadway: paying their actors above the Equity minimum, providing mental-health-counseling stipends to actors, and distributing affordable, premier seats for underrepresented audience members through community organizations. Recently, Nwandu spoke with Shondaland about the process of getting Pass Over ready for its debut during the pandemic, visions of a better Broadway, and the act of creating for Black audiences (including herself) during this historic moment.

GLORIA OLADIPO: Just to begin, I’d love to hear how you’re doing and how the creative process is going right now. I know you all are super-close to opening [the play started previews on August 4 and opens on September 12]. What is it like?

ANTOINETTE NWANDU: It’s amazing, it’s groundbreaking, it’s historic. The play is in a really great place, which I’m super-happy about. I think that’s in large part thanks to my collaborators and my creative team, most of whom I’ve been working with for the bulk of this journey. So, I’ve been with a lot of them since Chicago [Pass Over premiered at the Steppenwolf Theatre in 2017]. So, we’re in a really great place.

This is a really difficult part of the rehearsal process; we’re in technical rehearsal, so this is our first day at the August Wilson Theatre. It’s a lot of really technical, nitty-gritty, challenging stuff, [but] I’m in good hands, and it feels so great to just be privileged to be able to do something that I know is historic—like, Broadway’s never shut down like this, we’ve never lived through a pandemic before, I’m at the August Wilson Theatre, I’m the first Black playwright to have a play here since the theater became the August Wilson. Before that, James Baldwin, I learned today, had plays here. August Wilson had several plays premiere here, so the legacy is strong. And I feel really, really, really grateful and blessed and aware.

GO: With transitioning into in-person rehearsals, what was that process like? Were there any difficulties, and were there any that surprised you?

AN: Honestly, I would say the opposite. I would say that before I started, I had so much anxiety, because I was just like, “This is crazy. What are we doing?” But then once I actually got back to work, the work itself came very easily, and the work itself has been the saving grace, I think, and the work itself has been how we have been able to put up with all of the irregularity and all of Covid, because the work itself is so good and it feeds us. It just feeds us so much. So, yeah, I think I would say beforehand I thought it would be harder than it is. I mean, it’s challenging, and it’s daunting just because it’s so much, but emotionally I’m happier than I could’ve imagined.

GO: What did you look forward to the most about being in an in-person space again?

AN: Can I be completely honest with you? I am really looking forward to flirting [laughs]. I miss flirting with people! I’m a huge flirt, and I miss it. So, I’m like, “Yes, bring it on. Bring it on. I’m flirting with everybody.”

GO: What about flirting did you miss?

AN: I think the validation. I think the playfulness of it. I’m also newly bi-curious; I’m going through a divorce now, and so I’m allowing myself, or granting myself, the space to totally question everything. So, I’m interested in, you know, exploring my bi-curious, my bisexual identity. I think it’s a way of learning more about yourself, at the end of the day. I really think it’s just centering on desire as opposed to centering on fear, you know? That’s my after-time mantra. I gotta center on something other than fear because, look, bad shit is going to come. We’ve all lived through it, so it’s like, I want to live. I want to live. Let’s center on desire; let’s center on good things.

GO: I love that. Another question that I have is that, earlier on, you talked about how this process has really been aided by the “good hands” you’ve been in, people that have helped you through this process. Something I’ve been really pleased with about Pass Over is all the precautions you’ve taken to care for everyone involved. Things like the mental-health fund for the actors and above-minimum-wage salaries aren’t commonplace yet. What inspired those actions on your part? How do things you’ve implemented with this show reflect what you envision a better future in Broadway to be like?

AN: I think what inspired it, honestly, was just my own moral compass. I’m just not the kind of person that says, “Oh well, I hope everybody is safe. I don’t really know, but let’s just try to make some money and do this play.” If the work onstage is about the sanctity of Black life and how precious life is, but then, behind the scenes, I’m cutting corners or I’m not caring about the mental health of the Black people who are playing the [characters]? I don’t know — that’s just really suss to me. That just doesn’t make sense. That’s literally baked into the DNA of the show, so I think that’s one of the things about the kind of work I do.

If you do work that is as morally laden as my work is, then I think on a certain level you have to walk the walk. And that’s just sort of the way I’ve approached my career. Part of my brand is just, if nothing else, I walk the walk. So, the specific ideas, that was a collaboration between my lead producer, Matt Ross, and I. He has experience producing on Broadway, and he has experience in PR for over 15 years in the Broadway theater community. So, he understands the rules and regulations. He understands the way it used to be. He and I were able to come up with our solutions together.

GO: I love the level of access that you’re pioneering and putting forth. One of the things that I’ve been really curious about and a lot of people have been talking about is the ending changing and the decision behind that. What has it been like to envision a new ending, specifically one oriented toward Black joy?

AN: Yeah, it was a pretty gnarly process for about a week and a half. Mainly, it was emotional. But I think the dramaturgy of the play is strong, and the dramaturgy of the new ending is very strong, and it wasn’t so much about replacing [the old one] — though I thought it was gonna be a replacement — and really it was just cutting out the part, you know, that last moment of Moses’ joy being stripped away. What if the joy isn’t stripped away? What if the joy is just allowed to continue? GO: In general, Covid has really done a number on everyone. We’ve all had to adapt, including audiences. As we hopefully start to transition out of the pandemic, what do you think an audience needs now?

AN: Hope. I think we need hope, and we need a vision. I’ve been thinking about this verse from the Bible, from the Old Testament. It says, “Without a vision, the people perish.” Because if you only see what’s around you, then you think that’s all there could ever be, but you need a vision of something different. And that’s what I’m trying to give audiences with this play, a vision of a world where Black people and Black bodies are safe. I’m trying to give people a vision.

Gloria Oladipo is a freelance writer from Chicago, Illinois. She writes on a variety of topics including cultural criticism, politics, entertainment, health, and more. Previously, she has been published in Teen Vogue, The Guardian, and Bloomberg CityLab, to name a few. Follow her on Twitter @gaoladipo.

Reprinted with gratitude from www.shondaland.com/inspire/a37236274/ antoinette-nwandu-pass-over-broadway/