Video: What's THE REFUGE PLAYS All About? The Cast Explains

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World, Roundabout Theatre Company

and New York Theatre Workshop are presenting the world premier of The Refuge plays by Nathan Allen Davis

And we're here in the rehearsal room to meet the company. I remember years ago I was at the O'Neill with August Wilson

And he said, when you make decisions about your career, do every play like it's the last one you'll do

And doing this piece feels like it's living up to the promise. nothing else in my career, this piece feels like the fulfillment of everything I want

It's beautiful, epic writing that I think will go on after us

It's a stunning cast. It's a joyful collaboration between the Roundabout and New York Theatre Workshop

So it's everything I would ever want a thing to be. And it's just filled with joy, beauty, healing, love, humor

What more could you want? It is always a pleasure to see you. You were like the busiest actress in New York at the moment

I'm very, very fortunate in this. And the reason that I took a master class with Lynn Thickpin

She said if you sit at the table long enough, you will get fed. Some people, most people get up and go and eat somewhere else

I've been at the table. I've been involved off and on with the play since about 2017

And I think family is a root that we have ignored. and it's the source of the sustenance that we need

These are the people that know us and love us. Most even though it fraught with a lot of crisis you know this is our root And Emily Mann said that this is the next great American play We were supposed to have done this at the MacArthur right before COVID

So I stand on a solid foundation for what this play is about and the people that support it

How excited are you to be returning to the stage in this show

Very excited. I'm working with some people that I've known for a very long time and some in

incredibly talented new people. People that I've admired from afar and finally get to get up there and mix it up

So it's great. Well, it's been about 10 years since I've been on stage

and I love it. I feel like I'm being maximized. I'm being worn out

I'm being stretched. Patricia McGregor, our director, is pushing all of our buttons

and pulling on all of our ideas and impulses. and she's got a movement coach in there

and she's got voice work, and I mean, it's a symphony. We are each an instrument in this gorgeous symphony

Being in an off-broadway play in New York is so important because so much good work comes through roundabout, New York Theatre Workshop

and it's a chance for us to keep hope alive for the theater

So when you first read this play and these plays, what made you say, yes, I have to be a part of this

The play. Just reading the play. No it first of all the fact that it goes backwards I think it very it interesting the idea that we go from the fruit of this family to the root of this family And not that it never happened before but I never been a part of something like that

So to be, to even as an actor to work backwards, you know, in the storytelling is a very interesting challenge

And also it's just a beautiful piece. Well, first of all, I'm excited to be a part of the Roundabout Theater

But this show here, I tell you, it tells a story. And it's going to take you on an adventure

And it's going to be explosive, exciting. It's going to make you laugh, cry, applaud

And so I'm excited to be a part of this incredible cast and this incredible director, Patricia McGregor

How excited do you to be returning to the stage in these beautiful plays? Oh, my God

I'm so excited to be back. It's so exciting to be in a rehearsal room. And I've been workshopping these plays since 2015

So we are so happy to be here and so ready. It's just been love and trust and rigor

I am just working with the hardest working people in this business

and actors that I have revered Lizanne Mitchell, Jerome Preston Bates. I used to read about originating the August Wilson plays

And so it's just such an honor to be in the same space and sharing space with these people

What's it been like being in this room with this incredible group of actors and your director and having the playwright there

Oh, my God. It has been amazing, especially having the play right there and a superbly talented cast

that has had so much more experience than myself. So I've kind of just been interviewing them

Like, you're interviewing people now, just asking them a question, seeing how much I can really learn from them

Every single one of these actors in this cast is incredible I know that such an overused term but I really mean it when I say I just grateful to be here with them

They hold me up. They hold the show up and the words. Being back in a rehearsal room, what that means to you

I mean, you know, we didn't have theater for a while during the pandemic. And now we're all back

These rooms are all alive again with your words popping off the page. What that means to you

It means everything. It means everything. I mean, this is the thing that I love most in the world

I always have. It certainly feels different now, you know. And it feels like everything

I feel more emotions. I laugh more. I cry more. It's everything

What do you hope audiences take away after seeing this? I hope that people find their refuge

Or they identify what refuge means. to them. You know, where do you come from

You know, what do you connect it to? Why do you do the things you do

Why, how did you find out to do the things that you do? You know, so it's just about history, just to connect

to history and purpose. Yeah, I hope people take away remembering where they came from

You know, it's, I think, I've said it before, as New Yorker

a lot of us transplants are people who, this is our refuge. New York is a refuge for a lot of people

And, but we are from where we're from. And we are, we carry with us those people, those relationships, those genes

We are still those things. It's like, it's always good to reinvestigate the base, where we came from

Where are our roots