Janae Pierre: The category is, welcome back to The Takeaway. I'm Janae Pierre in from Melissa Harris-Perry.

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Janae Pierre: Chicago is the second longest running musical on Broadway, running in its current form since 1996. Throughout its run, Roxie Hart, the murderer is vixen protagonist who tantalizes and trumps her way out of prison and into the spotlight, has been one of Broadway's most iconic characters.

Speaker 1: There's this one guy gets me off, and with all this publicity, I can still get into vaudeville. I still have my own acts. Now, I got me a world full of yeees. The name on everybody's lips is going be, "Roxie."

Janae Pierre: Roxie Hart has been plagued by the likes of Brandy Pamela Anderson and Brooke Shields, but for two months, there's a new Roxie Hart.

Angelica Ross: I'm Angelica Ross, actress, singer, and the current lead in Chicago the musical.

Janae Pierre: You may be familiar with Angelica Ross from her role in the TV show, Pose where she played the beloved character, Candy Ferocity. Now, in her Broadway debut, she's making history as the first trans woman to play a leading role in a major Broadway musical.

Angelica Ross: Sometimes I'm down, sometimes I'm up. He follows round, like some droopy eye up. He loves me so, that honey, honey of mine.

Janae Pierre: Angelica Ross spoke with Melissa Harris-Perry.

Angelica Ross: Roxie Hart, oh, yes, Roxie Hart is a kind of a classic, almost archetypal type woman. Roxie, I feel like exists in every generation. She's a woman who wants more than what she's told she can have. She doesn't want to settle for just any man that likes her, but she wants passion. Is navigating a system that is not really set up for her to win, but where there's a will, there's a way so she finds a way.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me about how you prepare to play a role like this.

Angelica Ross: Part of the preparation definitely was the dancing. I wanted to make sure that I was doing passé right. It was weeks of dance rehearsal. I remember after the first day, my body was just crying and screaming, and I was just like, "What did I get myself into? I don't know if I can do this." When I got up and went to rehearsal the very next day, my body was just ready. Once I saw my body started to condition itself to what was needed, I was like, "Oh, okay."

Then my second concern was vocally. I was like, "Okay, I sing, but I haven't sung for eight shows a week." That many songs and belting out and all of that. That was my next concern. As I started doing the rehearsals every day on the same schedule that the show was on, I started to realize my voice was getting stronger and stronger. Then playing a character like Candy, and being a Black trans woman myself, there were just so many parallels for me that I was able to kind of do. We actors call it transference and take the very real experiences that I've had or that I've played before and transfer them into this character.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I don't know if you mean to be doing this, but when you were just talking about preparing for this role, to talk about the body, to talk about the voice, feels so much like both the reality of what you were experiencing, but also this rather extraordinary metaphor, to the experience of being a Black trans woman, the ways that the body and the voice are so connected to the self that you are bringing.

Angelica Ross: Absolutely. It's not lost on me how profound this experience is not only for me but for-- I'm a big believer in my Buddhist practice. Our lives are really literally reflections. There's this concept of oneness and environment, meaning that, I am not separate from my environment. Things that are going on in my internal environment are reflected in my external environment.

When I'm on stage and when I'm doing certain things, what I've realized is that I was very fortunate enough to start to silence some of the erroneous information that I was being fed as a child and as a youth. Did some of it seep in? Yes. Maybe that's why I didn't get to where I got to faster, or maybe is the reason why I'm still healing and growing.

I think I've been a little hard-headed over the years as far as really believing that I am who I say I am, that I am who I know I was created to be because it's a shocker for me too. I find myself grieving some days because I know that I lost time. I know that I can't get it back. I can only focus on now, but there was a time when I did not believe. Even though the songs were in my heart, even though the music was there, even though the creative expression or the passion or certain things were there, I did not maybe believe in myself as much as I could have. I refrain from saying you should have.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me about the transference piece around Roxie. Who is Angelica Ross's Roxie? Who are you bringing to her?

Angelica Ross: I'm bringing to her the girl that I was over two decades ago, that thought that because I was being trafficked into a space in the margins, I was starting to accept, "Okay, so this is where I belong as a trans woman, and that my dreams of being an actor and a singer, and doing those things are just not going to happen in this lifetime. This world is not ready for me and my talent." The change happens only first after acceptance, and it's such an odd thing.

I just had to accept the environment that I was in in order to find a solution from being within that situation. That determination, that will to figure it out, that is who Roxie is. She is someone who is just quick on her feet. She has to figure it out, she doesn't go back to her cell and then come back with a new idea. She's like, "Oh, I'm up against the wall. I'm pregnant." It's like somebody who's willing to do whatever it takes to get her results.

She's a little bit narcissistic, but sometimes these extremes happen when you're being placed into these environments that are being so extreme with how they're trying to define your boundaries and your opportunities. I've had an Amis before, a very sweet man who meant well, but just I was not passionate for.

I've been overlooked. Now I'm in a space where I'm learning more about my human design and just how I work and realizing that I'm specifically made to be a multi-hyphenate. Me thinking about how I'm not focused because I want to do this one moment and then do that the next moment, and actually seeing that as a gift and as a strength has been one of the most life-changing things for me.

Janae Pierre: Okay, we have to take a quick break. More of MHP's talk with Angelica Ross, right when we come back on The Takeaway.

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We're back on The Takeaway. I'm Janae Pierre filling in for Melissa Harris-Perry today. We've been listening to Melissa's conversation with a multi-hyphenated Angelica Ross. She's an actress and singer, now starring as Roxie in the Broadway show, Chicago. Before she hit the stage, and before you saw her on the show, Pose, as the beloved character, Candy Ferocity, she was named by our own Melissa Harris-Perry as a Foot Soldier of the year in 2015 for her work as a tech entrepreneur and activist. Angelica founded and is CEO of TransTech Social Enterprises, a company that empowers trans and gender non-conforming people with job training and leadership and also workplace skills.

Angelica Ross: In essence, the theme of my life has been, "Figure it out." Technology has been a piece, a catalyst that has helped me figure it out. I did not set out to be some kind of tech person and running a nonprofit. I found myself being trafficked into sex work, into the adult industry by being told, "You're trans, your ID says male on it. What are you going to do every time you go to a job?" It was like, "Right," because every time I did go to a job, I encountered the challenges of having an ID that didn't match, or eventually being found out on the job that I was trans, and then being harassed, and experiencing different violence.

I was then trafficked into the adult industry online. It was just a serendipitous moment of encountering this trans woman who ran a website, who was being taken advantage of by the industry, who saw that I was smart, and asked me if I thought I could help her run her website. If I could be the webmaster. If I could update the website every month with new pictures and things like that. I didn't go to school for any of that, so I had to go to the internet. I taught myself CSS and HTML, and the basics to be able to do that.

Technology gave me the grace to be able to move at my own pace, to be able to do what I needed to do without judgment, and continue to move forward, and be able to say, "I'm worth more than this." It got to a point where the money I was being offered on the streets wasn't worth more than what I could get on the internet, and what I could get coding and doing graphic design and doing things like that. I ran a business for 10 years doing that, to keep myself out of the margins.

I realized and thought that that will be a blueprint for helping other people, not just trans people, but definitely, other people in my community to navigate underemployment or unemployment. It was really me trying to say my own self in my own life, and same thing with my advocacy. I did not sign up to be an advocate. I kind of did, but it was more so about advocating for myself first, for my right to exist and my right to be valued.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Do you miss Candy?

Angelica Ross: Oh, my God. Yes, I do. I miss Candy. Playing Candy Ferocity, it was one of the best times of my life. It was so much fun. I got to be so messy. It was just great because life is messy, and sometimes people like Candy Ferocity. I only heard when they're being who they are, those loud, vibrant personalities that they are. I just wanted to honor people like that with my portrayal of Candy.

When it came to in, I was in grieving for a long time. It was a very interesting vicarious experience laying in a coffin. Having these moments of afterlife conversations with each of the characters, and seeing myself and my character be valued more than she was when she was alive. It was a hard experience.

After the season was over, we all have our group chat. I just wasn't the most happy person in that group chat, because I was still grieving. When they were talking about certain things, I would start breaking down crying. I was living with her death for a while, especially with all the fans around the world, tagging me, talking about how they were watching it with their mothers and their families, and it's brought them closer. For me, that's all I wanted from that performance. It would have been great to be recognized by the industries and my peers in certain ways, which I was in certain ways, but the overwhelming response from the audience told me all I needed to know worldwide.

Melissa Harris-Perry: As we end, talked to me a bit about your faith journey. You've talked about your performing journey, your employment journey, your intellectual journey, your journey as Candy, the journey we're going to get to go on with you as Roxie Hart.

Angelica Ross: I feel very blessed to have been introduced to the practice of Nietzsche and Buddhism. My spiritual practice has got me to a place to truly understand this environment that I'm in. To understand that what I need, what I seek is not outside myself, but that I am a part of a divine setup, and that I have access to that power anytime that I want.

It's such a change from being brought up in the church and having an external understanding of God and even the devil. This lack of responsibility and personal responsibility when you can say, "Well, the devil is busy and the devil is up to something," or praying for Jesus to come in and fix your situation when God has given you all the tools to be able to do the work yourself.

For me, my spiritual practice, and it's a practice, it's a daily practice that allows me to really check in with myself, and to understand that I am all that I need and that everything else is wonderful participation in light. That when I did not have my mother's approval or my family's approval, although that created some trauma in my life that I've healed through, recognizing that I've always had the power, I just needed to have the tools to be able to center and focus myself. I've been practicing that Buddhism for about 12 years now. I recognize it as a significant difference in me than other folks in my community who have been robbed of their spiritual practice.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Angelica Ross is actress, singer, and now the lead in Chicago on Broadway playing Roxie Hart. Angelica, thank you so much for your time today.

Angelica Ross: Thank you, Melissa, and keep being your brilliant self. I love you.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Oh, I love you too. Thank you for being here.

Janae Pierre: Angelica Ross stars as Roxie in Chicago on Broadway through November 6.

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