Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar. Alison Stewart is on vacation. Just for the next handful of days, you're stuck with me. Hey, thanks for spending part of your day with us. I'm grateful that you're here. Here's what's coming up on today's show. We'll speak with Calvin Eng, the chef and owner of Bonnie's, a Cantonese-American restaurant in Brooklyn. He's got a new cookbook out titled Salt Sugar MSG and he joins us to discuss. We'll speak with musician, composer, and producer Terri Lyne Carrington. Two members of the band, The Altons, join us in studio for a listening party from their new album Heartache in Room 14. All right, that's the plan, so let's get this started with Wine in the Wilderness.

[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: You and Me]

Kousha Navidar: The 1969 play, Wine in the Wilderness, from acclaimed playwright Alice Childress is about two people with very different thoughts on gender. There's Bill, an artist played by Grantham Coleman. Bill is working on a triptych about Black womanhood. The first painting is of an innocent little girl. The second painting is of his ideal woman. He wants the third painting to be of a woman he describes as "ignorant, unfeminine, coarse, rude, vulgar." What he sees as a product of 1960s society.

Bill thinks he's found the perfect model in a woman named Tommy. She's played by Olivia Washington. Tommy is loud and confident and funny. She's excited to have her portrait painted, but she doesn't realize she's been chosen for unkind reasons. The first meeting between artist and model takes place as a riot unfolds on the streets of Harlem. They actually start to hit it off, but will Tommy find out why she was chosen for this portrait? Will Bill reevaluate his expectations of Black women?

This production of Wine in the Wilderness is directed by Tony-winner LaChanze and is running at Classic Stage Company through April 13th. I am thrilled to be joined right across the table right now from me by the stars of the show, actors Grantham Coleman and Olivia Washington. Welcome to you both.

Olivia Washington: Hi.

Grantham Coleman: Hey.

Kousha Navidar: Hey, it's really great to have you here. Grantham, I'd love to start with you. Why did you want to be a part of this production?

Grantham Coleman: You just said it all in a nutshell. Really, it was LaChanze and Olivia, but Ms. Childress's work has been around my peripheral for a while. I never read this play. My buddy sent it to me and was like, "Hey, what do you think of this?" I was like, "Oh, this is great. What do you want me to do?" He was like, "Well, we might need a bill." I was like, "Oh, this is cool. Who's doing it?" He's like, "LaChanze." I was like, "Oh, that's awesome. Who's playing Tommy?" "Olivia Washington." I was like, "Oh."

[laughter]

Grantham Coleman: Okay, I get to yell at Olivia every day? Yes. Y'all pay? [laughs] For sure.

Kousha Navidar: Pay to yell at Olivia.

[laughter]

Kousha Navidar: Well, Olivia, then I'll ask you. What was special about Alice Childress's writing for you? During the times when the character Bill is not shouting at your character on stage, you yourself are doing plenty of talking. It feels like you're really living in the words.

Olivia Washington: Yes, I had never read a woman so vulnerable, so bold, and so free, and so curious as well. Tommy is such a full human. I think it was intimidating at first, the idea of beginning to develop this character. Of course, being with LaChanze, she's so incredibly talented in so many different ways. I felt like we were in good hands to begin.

Kousha Navidar: Like Grantham was saying, it's his first experience with this play. Was it your first experience as well? Were you familiar with this?

Olivia Washington: With this play? Yes, absolutely. I was like, "Wait a minute. What? When? How?" It just really opened up the floodgates. Of course, we all know LaChanze and the Alice Childress, Tony Award-winning production that she was in. Firstly, it's quite quick. It's a short, compact story, and yet there's so much that's happening historically as well as internally in the lives of these two people.

Kousha Navidar: I saw the show just two days ago on Tuesday and the pacing was so wonderful. It really hits you. It's like a rollercoaster ride where it just goes up the hill and then it falls down. The thrill, I'm talking about.

Olivia Washington: Yes, indeed.

Kousha Navidar: I want to talk a little bit about some beats of the play. I'd love to start with the triptych. This is the three art piece that the character Bill talks about right at the beginning of the show. Grantham, what are Bill's goals with his art? What is he hoping to achieve?

Grantham Coleman: Good question. I think my gap between Grantham as artist and Bill as artist, not just he's a painter and it's visual, but I think he's somebody that's more prescriptive as an artist, whereas I think a lot of actors are reflective. We reflect humanity back at themselves. Be it ugly, pretty, beautiful, dirty, whatever it is, I'm just trying to be a vessel, whereas I think Bill is trying to prescribe like, "This is what we need. This is what we should be doing. This is my piece of the revolution, of the riot. This is how I, as Bill, contribute to better society." It can come off in some ways as like, "Oh, hopeful, optimistic," but I think a lot of it is judgmental and a lot of it might be self-- What's the word? I don't want to say self-hate but definitely not appraising the value of people that look like him.

Kousha Navidar: Well, "judgmental" was a word that you used. That might be a self-judgmental maybe. That applies to this triptych that he's making?

Grantham Coleman: I think so because you look at artists who did triptychs. It was a very-- not archaic, but it's a very classical, baroque approach to art. We had it in churches. We had it in cathedrals and things like that. I feel like he as an artist who probably studied history, he's like, "I'm going to do this thing for our people." They're going to see themselves like you would see the triptychs about the Virgin Mary.

I think when he approaches this work, it is about like, "Let's take what we are, we had, the innocence of the young girl, the innocence of the child, and I'll go to my ideal woman," who he believes is real. He thinks that's what people should be. He thinks this is the idealistic Black woman that doesn't exist. I don't think he knows anyone like her. Then he has this third idea in mind. For some reason, he can't complete the idea. He can imagine the second one, but he can't imagine the third one. He needs a real person. He needs a model. He needs somebody to base his hate off of.

Kousha Navidar: Olivia, you hear Grantham talking about that. What reflects for you in terms of what Bill the character's impression of Black women is through how he's approaching this triptych?

Olivia Washington: Oh, I think when you're telling a story, it's always important to try to figure out how and why someone thinks the way that they do. I think it's coming from a place in my perspective of Bill of a deep desire to show his love of his community. It just happens to be a little bit misguided. I think what Tommy does is help recorrect unintentionally that idea. I think what I love about her as a person is that she just has this openness and curiosity and love. It's funny. Your sign behind you that says, "Work hard and be nice to people," I think--

Kousha Navidar: It's a sign in the studio right now.

Olivia Washington: I feel like Tommy's is how you treat people. When you're comfortable around people, you show love, and maybe love can be reflected back at you. I think that's what Bill's trying to do. I don't think any of these characters think that they're being deprecating or harmful to anybody. I think they think they're uplifting and being good and trying to show good goodness.

Kousha Navidar: What their version of goodness is, like you said, might be misguided.

Olivia Washington: Exactly, yes.

Kousha Navidar: I love that interpretation. That term of love, it comes from a place of love. It really resonates with me. Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're talking with actors Grantham Coleman and Olivia Washington. They are starring in the current revival of the 1969 play, Wine in the Wilderness, by Alice Childress. It is running at the Classic Stage Company through April 13th. I'd like to talk about Tommy's personality a little bit more since you touched on it, Olivia. Such a big personality. What was your process for finding Tommy's voice and energy?

Olivia Washington: You definitely can't be shy.

[laughter]

Olivia Washington: I'm super shy.

[laughter]

Olivia Washington: We have an obligation to tell this great story written by Alice Childress. There's really no time to feel insecure or to pull back. I think one of the first things that I wrote in my little actor notebook [chuckles] is that she's not afraid of anything and to play a woman who's not afraid of anything even though, seemingly, there's so much to be afraid of outside in the world of the riot, outside of, like, you can't trust people you don't know. I think I love how fearless she is. That was a little part of me of being like, "Olivia might be afraid today, but maybe Tommy's not," so how do these two people talk to each other?

Kousha Navidar: Yes, so finding the way that the character influenced you as much as what you--

Olivia Washington: Absolutely. Every time you go out there, I'm like, "I can't be scared," even if I am scared.

[laughter]

Kousha Navidar: Tommy's not scared. Maybe she's scared. I don't know.

Olivia Washington: She's not afraid of being afraid. [laughs]

Kousha Navidar: Oh yes, I hear that. You mentioned the riots. Let's talk about that for a little bit because the show opens with sounds of a riot happening outside the apartment where the play takes place. Grantham, it's all taking place in the midst of a riot in Harlem. How is Bill responding to what's going on outside of his window? How is he dealing with it?

Grantham Coleman: I think for Bill, especially at the top of our play, for those of you who love the people who are coming to see it, there is a bit of a pre-show where you get to see some art happen, maybe. I think for Bill, it's about trying to be a part of what's outside but knowing this is his way of being in the riot. It's based on the actual riots that were in Harlem in 1964, where a young Black man was killed by the police.

There were three days of riots. This play happens on the third night of when the riots actually end. Bill has to finish this triptych because he has a deadline for this exhibition, but he wants to be in the streets. He's not the guy that can go out there and stir a crowd together even though he speaks very well. This is his way of being a part of the revolution that he wants to see. Knowing that he has to finish this piece but with no inspiration, drawing on dead-ends, he's gifted a stranger by his friends.

They know what he's looking for. They know what he needs. He's not the only judgmental one. Other characters in this play are judgmental, but I think his response to the riot is, "This is good. This is good. We can use this." Then throughout the play as he looks outside and sees once again how other people's want for betterment can be misguided and things do go wrong, he says, "We busted up Harlem. No plan, no nothing," things like that.

Kousha Navidar: So much of this play is about gender. I also want to spend some time talking about that, starting with masculinity. Grantham, what would Bill say makes a strong Black man when we meet him at the beginning of the play?

Grantham Coleman: At the beginning of the play, I think it would be more of the king of your own castle. More of, how are you helping your people reach any goals? What are you doing in your life to better yourself? Are you reading? Did you go to school? Did you study? Did you follow the plan as we're all taught to as kids like go to school, then go to college, contribute to society? I think he very much say that, as a strong Black man, you must do all that and lead your people and find a way to keep getting by.

Kousha Navidar: I think that leads into the next question so well because there is this line that, Olivia, I want to talk to you about really quickly from the play that struck me. Tommy has this conversation with Bill's friend, Cynthia. Cynthia tells her, "Tommy, you have to let the Black man have his manhood again. You have to give it back, Tommy." Then Tommy says, "If I didn't take it from him, how am I going to give it back?" What does this exchange reveal about how both of these women see the world, do you think?

Olivia Washington: Ooh, I think there's a certain kind of correction we can make as people and what is to be ladylike, what is to be a strong woman. I think we can all place these ideals on top of that and then live our life accordingly to those big-idea pictures. The truth is, I think, with both of them, what comes down to, it's like we're just trying to be good people and we're trying to live full lives.

How do we do that? I think they just had different ways of doing that. I think Tommy was seeking information from Cynthia to try to figure out how to be a fuller woman [chuckles] and I think the idea of-- I don't know. It just feels like she's being super honest in that moment of like, "Okay, I hear what you're saying." You said I have to give something back that I never took away.

That's also just reflective, I think, of the time period of what we discussed in rehearsal. These ideas of Black nationalism, of finding your identity were newer. People were figuring it out rightly or wrongly and figuring out what worked. When you're identifying yourself, you don't always have the right answers right away. It's a process of seeking yourself. I figure that's kind of what's happening.

Kousha Navidar: Can you talk a little bit more about that process? What were the conversations like in the rehearsal room on those topics? How much did they influence choices that you were making? I know that's two separate questions, but maybe just stick with the first one. What were the conversations like in the rehearsal room?

Olivia Washington: Arminda Thomas is our dramaturg. She had a wealth of information about both Alice Childress and the time period. That's where we began a lot of articles from Jet magazine or Ebony from the '60s and just getting history about the time period and then just having discussions back and forth. Us bringing our own family history into it and my grandfather, my grandmother, and we just brought everything. I don't know. Where do we start?

Grantham Coleman: I think it definitely started with LaChanze and Arminda just talking about their own personal family. Also, the research that Arminda had, she had all these articles that Alice wrote before and after the play and just referencing her own experience in the theater, her experience as a Black woman writing plays, and how the plays that she wrote were based on people she knew like Bill, Tommy, Sonny-man.

They're characters in the play, but there's definitely some way to strategize and find out who were these people in her world. We had a lot of ways in, but a lot of it was us just talking. We would ask questions. There are people, fortunately, in the room who had lived through some of these experiences like Milton Craig Nealy, phenomenal actor. Phenomenal. He plays Oldtimer. He was like, "Well, yes." Day one, he said, "I know exactly who Oldtimer was."

He's like, "I saw this man in my neighborhood." Because he's from Chicago, he's like, "I saw this man in my neighborhood every day growing up." I like to think that I know Bill just from looking. I've done a lot of different shows and films about the '60s and a lot of different research. They all have amalgamated into my head about like, "Oh, this dude says he's about the movement, says he's for the movement, but he's not at the movement." What does that say about someone?

Kousha Navidar: Right. He's prescriptive in a lot of ways. He's outside looking through. You mentioned that there are questions that you're asking. I hate to put you on the spot, but was there a question in your mind, Grantham, that you needed answered at the top of your character study that ended up making a big difference with how you chose to portray Bill?

Grantham Coleman: Yes, but it was an internal question of, how dangerous is he? We made a lot of choices and spent a lot of time with the-- It's such an intimate space that we have. Using the space with five people, five bodies in the room, and the different movements that you have read differently to an audience. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out not what does Grantham want to do, but what did Alice need Bill to be? How present is violence in this world because it's outside? How much of that do we bring into this play? Is Bill's apartment a safe place or is it another place of danger? Be it sexual violence, physical violence, who knows? That's one of the questions that I was cognizant of.

Kousha Navidar: What was the original artist's intention and making sure that that followed through with your choices. Listeners, we're talking right now with the actors Grantham Coleman and Olivia Washington. They are starring in the current revival of the 1969 play, Wine in the Wilderness, by Alice Childress. It is running at the Classic Stage Company through April 13th.

I want to move to a different topic in the play. There is a lot of discussion about the N-word. I want to just set this up for our listeners because this isn't a word we use lightly on our show. Of course, I'm not going to use it. The characters themselves have that debate about whether it's okay to use the word. Tommy uses it to refer to the people who are rioting in Harlem. Bill tells her to say "Afro-American" instead.

There's a pivotal moment later in the play where they look up the word in the dictionary, which, for me, was one of the most striking moments of the play. I'm not going to ruin anything, but it is an important part. Olivia, this play was written in the '60s, but the conversation that I saw on stage felt like it was something that could have been written today. What do you think about that?

Olivia Washington: I think that's what makes Alice Childress a classic. It can speak to the time where she was writing, which was late '60s, '69, '68. It can speak to 2025. I think what is so beautiful about this play, it's an internal conversation and to find there is no monolith. There is no one answer that anybody has. To start a conversation that we definitely all had like the African-American experience, we've had this conversation. When is it acceptable? Why is it acceptable?

Some people refuse to use the N-word. Some people find great reverence in using the N-word. I think there really is no answer but to present it to the room. How Alice Childress does in this play is, in my eyes, beautiful. She is empowered by this word. She is, again, reminding not just the people in the room but herself like, "We are the community. I am using this word in a way to show care and love of you and safety in this space."

Kousha Navidar: If I heard you correctly, it's this idea that it's not a monolith and there is nuance to it. That's fair to say, what I heard. Is that what makes it feel, this exchange about the N-word, so relevant to 2025? Is it that in something else? Is that what it is?

Olivia Washington: Truthfully, did the word ever go away? I think maybe the meaning changed over time for some. Constantly, new generations are being born and having to reconcile with what that word means to them and what it means to the family or their group or your group of friends and whoever you're with obviously, specifically, in the community.

I think it's relevant because it's still resonating. [laughs] People can still have visceral reactions. Every time that moment happens, that realization, you hear different generations across the board responding, rippling through the audience of like, "Uh-huh, I knew that's what it meant," or, "Oh, I didn't really know that's what that meant." It's beautiful thing to happen.

Kousha Navidar: Those visceral reactions are apparent in the audience, in my audience, at least, which we're going to talk about in a second. Grantham, I wanted to turn it to you before we move on. At one point, another line that really stuck out to me, Tommy says to Bill, your character, "You treat me like an N-word. I'd rather be called one than treated that way." How does Bill receive that?

Grantham Coleman: Well, Bill, in the moment, receives it not well, I think, especially at that part of the show. He's learning a lot of things about himself and, at first, apologizing without processing and then processing without apologizing. Then hopefully, at the end, he comes to a marriage of the two. I think, in general, for all of those moments, this play is interesting because it's not done very often. You ask yourself why. It's really well-written. It's not long. It doesn't have a huge cast.

I think, especially for the last 50 years, that it was probably that scene because it's a play about five Black people, written for five Black people, for Black people. The interesting thing that we can do now is you can bring an audience that's of any background and see and find their way into it. I think for probably the last 50 years, that was very hard for subscriber bases and other audiences to even feel comfortable sitting in a room where people are using the N-word because they don't have a way in, I imagine. You see a play or a story or movie.

Everyone tries to find themselves in the story. That didn't happen for a lot of people that didn't look like me. Now, in 2025, I think it's very powerful to be doing this play that wasn't done a lot and having so many people go, "Why is this the first time I'm reading it? Why is this the first time I'm hearing it?" Because I think, now, we do have enough social love to be able to see and find ourselves in any story. The universal truth that she wrote in this play aren't just Black people's truth. They're everyone's. The gaze has shifted. Now, people can actually see themselves in it.

Kousha Navidar: There's this very striking moment. I don't want to ruin anything. Tommy, your character, Olivia, does get a chance to speak her mind. It is a powerful moment.

Olivia Washington: Indeed.

Kousha Navidar: For you as an actor, what emotions are you channeling through yourself in those final scenes?

Olivia Washington: We have a job to do. I think above myself, we have the job to tell the story that Alice Childress wrote and to tell it truthfully and to tell it fully. That is my attempt every night that we get to have the opportunity to speak her words and to speak life into these people, to do it honestly so that, similar like you say at the end, we can all see ourselves in the people and people perhaps that we never thought we saw ourselves in. We can find the humanity in everyone and see the value in everyone. That is a mission for me to continue to work through in this process.

Kousha Navidar: We have about a minute left, so I want to very quickly-- I mentioned the audience reactions. There are big audience reactions in my show at least. For each of you, very quick. What have been your favorite audience-reaction moments so far? Grantham, let's start with you.

Grantham Coleman: There's a moment where Tommy struggles to find a word. I won't say what the word is, but she struggles to find it. Several times, people yell it from the audience.

[laughter]

Grantham Coleman: They're just with her. They're with her and they're like, "Girl, I want to help you. I want to help you." It's written that way that she can't find it so that the other actor in the show, Lakisha, who plays Cynthia, can say the word. It brings some kinship, some bond back. You'll have people in the audience be like, "Blank."

[laughter]

Grantham Coleman: Then go [gasps].

[laughter]

Kousha Navidar: I'm an extra now on this show.

Olivia Washington: That's a good one. [laughs]

Kousha Navidar: Olivia, how about you?

Olivia Washington: Oh, there's so many. I think, again--

[crosstalk]

Olivia Washington: You did, you did, you did, so I have to find another. No, but Milton, in the beginning, he said, I think one of the lines is, "That calls for another drink." How people really enjoy the joy that he's having with you on stage, I don't know. There are so many. There are so, so many. I feel so lucky when people can feel connected enough to want to respond. It makes you feel like, "Oh, people are listening." They really are hearing the story, so that's a good feeling.

Kousha Navidar: Olivia Washington and Grantham Coleman are actors in the show, Wine of the Wilderness. It's a revival of the 1969 play by Alice Childress. It is running at the Classic Stage Company through April 13th. Grantham, Olivia, thank you so much for hanging out with us.

Olivia Washington: Thank you. Come see Wine in the Wilderness. [chuckles]

Grantham Coleman: Yay.