Video: Audra McDonald and Kenny Leon Open Up About the Drama of OHIO STATE MURDERS

Okay, thank you for meeting with us today

How excited are you to be working on this play? I am very excited to work on Ohio State Murders

number one because of adrian kennedy who is an amazing writer and she i remember in college

reading her the owl answers she has a great play called the funny house of the negro

and this woman has just contributed so much to academic life and theater life in america

that I just feel honored to, that she's entrusted me with the commercial production of Ohio State Murders

And to do it with my friend, Audra McDonald, in the James Earl Jones Theater

I feel a huge sense of responsibility, and I'm up to the task

I'm excited to do it. I just finished doing a play on Top Dog, Underdog on Broadway

which I think is probably one of the best experiences I've had

But to go right into rehearsal for Ohio State Murders, I think these plays are in conversation with each other

Both of these plays are about the need for us to love on humanity a little bit more

And to do one with Susie Laurie Parks and the other with Adrian Kennedy

these two powerhouse women, I'm just a lucky kind of person and a lucky director

And I'm just very excited to present this play to the public with its suspense

with its living moment by moment, also looking at our time on the planet with each other

So it's a very exciting play. You are about to return to Broadway in this beautiful play, which I've read numerous times

Talk about who you play and the relevance of this play for now

I play Suzanne Alexander, a woman in her 50s who is a writer who has been invited back

to her alma mater, Ohio State, to talk about imagery in her work, certain types of imagery

in her work. And in doing so and preparing to give this speech she ends up sort of releasing emotionally and telling a secret a story of what actually happened to her when she was at Ohio State in 1949 It a murder mystery it a memory play and it a cautionary tale on the horrific effects of systemic racism

and trauma on a person and lasting effects and devastating consequences of having such

you know, racism institutionalized in the way that it is and was at, you know, Ohio State

many, many, many, many universities then. And its relevance is it feels like we're

making a U-turn heading right back to that time. You know, so being, for me, being a black woman

in my 50s in 2022 and people sitting here sort of denying that systemic racism exists and

legislating systemic racism back into society and then people just boldly claiming it

It feels like this is a story that needs to be told right now to sort of as a shout

as a warning, you know, and shine a light on it and call it out

I just love that the playwright's making her Broadway debut with this play too, isn't she

Yeah, this is her debut. And, you know, she's 91 years old. And this is the first time her play has been on Broadway, but certainly not the first time human beings have witnessed her wonderful writing

And, you know, in this year, especially after COVID, to see the diversity of storytelling on Broadway, you know, this is the way I think it should be

And I hope we continue to go in this direction. But to have Tom Stoppard on one corner and August Wilson on the next, Susie Laurie Parks on the next, you know, Casey Nicholaw doing something like it, Hot Down the Street, Death of a Salesman with Wendell Pierce, you know, and then to add this to the fabric of that

I think we're redefining what stories need to be on our greatest stage

and to be a part of introducing the world or more of the world

to Adrienne Kennedy's wonderful writing, her poetry, her skill set is just otherworldly

So, yeah, I'm glad to do Adrienne's welcoming party to Broadway

and should have happened a long time ago. But we don't live in the past, we live in the present

And so I hoping that many many folks will do other plays for Broadway and on university campuses and in community theater And I just want the world to know how gifted a writer and how much she given to America for you know eight or nine decades

Being back in the room with Kenny Leon, what's that like? Oh, it's Kenny. It's Kenny. I mean, you know, it's been 18 years since we've worked together

but we've remained friends all this time and talked about what are we going to do? We have to do something together at some point and cheer each other on

And, of course, we were both, you know, members of BTU. And so it's so wonderful being everything about who he was when we worked together 18 years ago

It's so it's so wonderful to have all those memories come rushing back and all those feelings

And so that feeling of being pushed really, really, really hard. I remember doing Raisin. He pushed me so hard

And I'd be like, I can't. I don't. And it was always with faith and love

He'd be like, no, yes, you can. You are McDonald. You can do this. and there's something about that it's like okay well if someone believes me and believes in me as

much as he does then who am I to say I can't do this and he's there pushing you but going I got

you but I'm gonna push you but I got you and then there's things like whenever he's really thinking

hard he pulls out a yo-yo and he starts doing his yo-yo and or he starts or he'll say he has very

interesting sort of repetitive phrases that he'll say over and over again in the middle of something

he'd be like repetition is good good repetition is better go back do it again you know so he's a

Wonderful cheerleader, coach, and he's one of the toughest directors I've ever worked with

And it's all in love. This has been a great experience. You know, Audra McDonald and I worked together on Raising in the Sun

where I think she won a Tony Award, and Felicia Rashad won a Tony Award

and I think we had 10 Tony nominations, but that was one of the years I did not even get nominated

But I had 10 nominations for the show. So like Felicia Rashad said at the time, she said, I guess the show directed itself

I said, yeah, but sometimes it's your time and sometimes it's other people's time

And I was grateful to win a Tony Award many years later on that same play

But this cast, at that time, Audra and I said, wow, this is a great experience working with each other

Let's do it again. And, well, as fate would have it, you know, we did, you know, I directed her in private practice and some other television stuff

But this is the first time we've been back in the room for theater

So that's like, I don't know, 15, 16 years. So we're really embracing that right now, this time together

And this is what we're supposed to do together. So I'm excited to be in a room with her

And just it amazing Sometimes I get carried away and work with her because I end up just watching her and being engaged with what she doing And she might say so what do you think I say huh I was lost

What, what, what? So it's great. She has an amazing skill set

Bryce Pinkham and I, we first met last year. We did a musical called Trading Places as we were trying to bring that into the city

But he is just an amazingly gifted artist. and to put him with Audra McDonald is exciting

And Lizanne Mitchell and I worked together many, many years ago, and it's been far too many years since we've been in the same room

so she's in the room, and Abby is just a joy to work with

So I'm really, you know, and Mr., who I saw in Raising in the Sun downtown

So we've got a great group of people, a great room of giving artists

and this is a tricky piece. Yes, it's a spinful, it's a whodunit

It's deception. But you need the right actors to deliver it because Adrienne Kennedy is the most economical writer on the planet

so she only gives you what is necessary. The play is 75 minutes of suspense, and you're out, and you're home

But it's so powerful. I think Mr. might have maybe 10 lines in the whole play

but it feels like he has 100. Abby has no lines. She plays the violin, and she's in scenes

and it feels like you've seen her in 15 scenes. Liz Ann plays three different maternal figures

but I don't even know how Adrien Kennedy does it. So it's not about words

It's about visual storytelling, some words, some scene. It's musical. It's even funny at some times, at certain moments

So yeah, I'm very excited with this cast. Very excited. Finally, you and your husband are appearing on Broadway together

in different shows, but together this season. What that means? It means that our daughter is going to need a lot of therapy

Our six-year-old, it's rough for her right now. And we're really struggling to figure out how we're going to make this work

Thank God mine's a limited run. It is kind of great that I can meet him after his show

way before his show is done, because mine's only in one act. but it's also very special

and I'm so proud of him and you know I fall more in love with him every single day

and the fact that this is happening to him you know at this moment in his life

is huge and so we will get through and then maybe we'll have

some family therapy afterwards for Sally or she'll blackmail us I don't know something