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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio, live streaming, or on demand, I'm really grateful you're here. I'm especially grateful if you've made a contribution to WNYC for our spring pledge drive. On the show today, two-time Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter, a legend will be here in studio to discuss her new book that chronicles her career and artistry. We will also speak with artist Kim Daker, who's also coming to the studio about her beautiful and intricate sculptures made from tire treads. We're going to continue our Mental Health Monday series with a conversation about loneliness, which brings us to a new play that tackles loneliness and the power of friendship. Let's get this started with Primary Trust.

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The title of the play, Primary Trust, refers to a small bank and an upstate New York suburb, where Kenneth, an odd loaner, finds a job. The title Primary Trust also refers to the one person Kenneth Believes has his back at all times, his friend Bert. Bert is upbeat and supportive and a terrific drinking buddy. He and Kenneth spend almost every night knocking back my ties at a local tiki bar called Wally's.

Aside from Bert, Kenneth now in his 30s is pretty much on his own. He was orphaned as a child, went through foster care, and just tries to get by. His life isn't going forward or backward, but when the opportunity for a new friendship with a Wally's waitress goes beyond niceties at the bar, Kenneth is sad yet stable existence is upended. One review called the play Primary Trust, inventive and touching, and The New Yorker named it one of the highly anticipated openings of the spring. Joining now in the show is playwright Eboni Booth. Eboni is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and a graduate of Juilliard's Playwriting program. Eboni, nice to meet you.

Eboni: Nice to meet you, Alison.

Alison Stewart: In the role of Kenneth, a part that requires him to be on stage the entire time is William Jackson Harper. You've seen his stage work, screen work, plus now he's part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and of course, his Emmy-nominated role in The Good Place. Welcome back, William.

William: Hey, thanks for having me.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, warning to you. Near the end of this conversation, we'll talk about something that happens fairly early on in the play. We won't go full spoiler, but I will give you a heads-up when we approach that point. Eboni, the play's origin story with this begins when you were at Julliard. What was the assignment?

Eboni: When I was at Julliard, our mandate was to write three plays a year. In my second year, I had to write a play rather quickly because it was going to be used for a public presentation of sorts to say something about the work I'd been doing. I wrote a very quick and dirty draft of Primary Trust and then it was a mess. It's embarrassing. I can't even look at it now, but I took another six weeks to try to get it a little bit closer to what it is today.

Alison Stewart: How did writing under time pressure shape this story?

Eboni: [chuckles] It's a crazy thing. You're powered by adrenaline and all the time that I would give to my angst and anxiety. I just couldn't really entertain it. I had to get out of my own way. I guess in a way, this sounds so cheesy, but listen a little closely to what I think I wanted to say. Sometimes that doesn't happen for me in the first draft. It's usually not until I finish the first draft that I'm looking at some sort of messy thing and start to think, "Oh, maybe this is what I was circling around."

Alison Stewart: Well, obviously you're an actor, but you're also a playwright. I think last time you were on the show was actually about the play that you'd written. What is something you admire about the construction of this play as a fellow playwright?

William: I think maybe it almost feels like very straightforward and simple in certain ways, but it's just not. [chuckles] I feel like there's something there is for me at least like a spell being woven a little bit where it's not like-- There's like certain plays where someone gets out and they want to show you exactly like I'm really good and here's why. It's like the flex right off the bat. I feel like this play doesn't do that. It's really confident writing. As things progress, it's just there's elements of surprise that you really can't-- as a reader that you really just aren't ready for. It's like one of those plays that works on me before I even realized started working on me then it's like, "Oh, well, dang. Okay."

Alison Stewart: When we meet Kenneth, what seems to be important to him?

William: I think you said it really well. He is hanging out. He is having his drinks. He is living his life having a good time with Bert and just flying under the radar as best he can and finding joy when he can and try not to get roasted or get in any trouble. That's where he is. Just living that small life.

Alison Stewart: Eboni, you have Kenneth addressing the audience directly. Sometimes the lights are up in the beginning of the show, what went into this choice? Why did you want to have Kenneth engage with us?

Eboni: Alison, that's such a good question. Consciously, oh my goodness, what is the answer to that question? I don't know. There's something about his internal life that feels quite vivid, and I hope this doesn't sound like a cheat, or maybe as I become more savvy as a writer, I'll be able to put it in dialogue. There's so much going on with him internally that I didn't want to miss out on. I think that some of it also stems from my love of reading Pros. I read enough to be really intrigued by an internal monologue. Some playwrights and directors have obviously made that be able to work quite vividly on stage. I was curious if we could still have some dramatic tension with him being a little clear and careful with the audience about some of what's on his mind.

Alison Stewart: William, Kenneth often stops mid-thought and not changes what he's going to say, or there's in mid-thought, you know, Kenneth is having a thought. We may not get to hear it. What is the challenge in that for you as an actor, to have that kind of stop thought? Start again. Maybe jump to another thought. It's just the way Kenneth's brain works

William: Well, honestly, that's not My Brain Works. That was one of the things that it didn't feel like-- It really wasn't a matter of like, "What is this?" When we were working on it. It was more of a thing of, like okay, there's many ways in which this can manifest. I feel like I've done this exact thing a few times and there's the let me stop because I don't want to offend you as the listener.

There's the stopping because I want to make sure that I'm being clear, there's the stopping because I am not sure that the thing that I'm saying is actually what I believe. It's like getting ahead of yourself and getting out over your skis. That makes sense to me. I wish in certain ways that I could get away with just stopping talking in life. I wish I could just get away with just doing that and not having it be a thing where I have to address why I stopped. Sometimes it's good to just be finished with your sentences.

Alison Stewart: Eboni, is it written anywhere in the script what Kenneth is actually thinking when he has these stop-and-starts, or is that work that William and Director Knud Adams did?

Eboni: Alison, that's such a great question. No, I don't write it down because I try to-- Will and I talked about this during rehearsal a lot. There are times when I have a thought about what might be left unsaid, but I thought maybe it would be more satisfying for Will as an actor and perhaps an audience member to fill in those ellipses on their own.

Alison Stewart: We're discussing the play Primary Trust, which is at the Roundabout Theater. My guests are actor William Jackson Harper and Eboni Booth. She wrote the play. This is the question for both of you. William, I'll get you to go first. Bert's this great friend, super supportive there for him, but how is this friendship with Bert keeping Kenneth from engaging with other people?

William: [laughter] Well, because when we first meet Kenneth, Bert is his his only friend, and his only outlet. It's like no matter what circumstances you find yourself in, I think that in a lot of relationships when you have one person that is playing all the roles, that can be damaging. It's like you don't want your domestic partner to also be your therapist [chuckles]. That gets really tough.

I feel like that's one of the ways in which it's like all of Ken's eggs are in one basket, which I think is-- while it's somewhat comforting in a lot of ways, it's also dangerous in a lot of ways because if something goes wrong, then what do you do? You have no other-- there's no spreading out of the tasks of the things that you get from other people. When you just have the one friend who's basically your be-all-end-all in everything. That's how bad it is for pretending.[unintelligible 00:11:04]

Alison Stewart: Eboni, did you want to add anything?

Eboni: No. I think that that's so true, and I think that I wasn't aware of it at the time, but now that we've been going through rehearsal performance, I'm realizing that I think one of the things I wanted to write about was comfort and how it can be both boon and bane. It can be quite nourishing, but it can, of course, hold you back from trying new things that feel unknown. Bert as comforting as he is, there's something about his constant presence that might be preventing Kenneth from poking his toe out into a different world.

Alison Stewart: Eboni, Mai Tais feature prominently in this play. Why Mai Tais, first of all? Why is that Kenneth's go-to drink? [chuckles]

Eboni: I guess it's his go-to drink because it was my go-to drink for a little bit. I live in Ridgewood Queens now. There's a little cocktail bar down the street called Sundown, and they have Mai Tais and I like a fun cocktail. I like a sweet cocktail. I like a frozen cocktail. What I also learned about myself drinking Mai Tais is that rum makes me-- I'm crazy and a little angry. [laughter] I didn't know that until I had two or three one night and went home and tried to start a revolution. It became this just in the way that drinking can be this-- It's a bit of a time machine what alcohol can do. There's something fun and inviting about the sweetness of a drink like that but on the other side of it I found some other stuff as well.

Alison Stewart: William, you play Kenneth. Is Kenneth an alcoholic?

William: I don't think that he would say that. I think one of the things that this play does, and one of the things I like about it is that we actually don't label a lot of things. It's like there's a lot of stuff in here that's like, huh. That's a totally valid question that you're asking. It's like, "Yes, is he?" I tend to think that Ken does not think so. There's other things in the play also that it's like, "Oh, what is this? Does that mean that he has this or that he's this or whatever?" It's like, "We don't know," but Ken certainly doesn't think so.

Alison Stewart: Eboni, in the play, for the most part, people are really kind. There's a couple of acts of kindness from different and surprising places. There's this bro-like high school football player who now's 50s or 60s long for the old days, and he could have really turned out to be a stereotypical old-white guy, bad guy, but he's just sympathetic and kind to Kenneth. What did you want to uphend about expectations in this play?

Eboni: Another good question, Alison Stewart. What did I want to uphend? I think my experience of watching a lot and reading a lot is that-- and something about maybe the chart of drama is that we're just waiting for the hammer to fall and for something bad to happen. I guess, part of me is curious about drama that often feels like my own life where the change is a little incremental. I see this very broadly, and of course, there are variations. Most people I come into close contact with are doing their best.

No apologies, there are a lot of bad people out there doing really horrible things. I was interested in a story maybe where the drama came from somewhere else. I think that Kenneth is vulnerable and really fragile. I think as an audience member watching, I would feel clenched the whole time waiting for someone to do him wrong, and so I was curious if there was maybe a way to understand change in movement when a lot of the stimuli could be understood as positive.

Again, that wasn't a conscious choice, but looking back on it, there's just something in me that's like, "I don't want to sound pollyannish," but just I think sometimes people are trying to look out for other people. The cultural moment we're in right now makes that really hard to hold onto. I think there's just a lot going on, but I feel bolstered and bullied by the idea that there are still some people who have my back even people who don't know me all that well.

Alison Stewart: Eboni, it's a small cast, and the other cast members play multiple roles. The great April Mathis, she makes everything better.

Eboni: She makes everything better.

Alison Stewart: Was it always written--? I'm sorry, I can't remember the other gentleman's name. Please shout him out.

Eboni: Jay Sanders.

Alison Stewart: People will recognize him right away. Was it always written that way that there would be one or two actors playing multiple roles?

Eboni: Yes. I'm nodding, but yes. Yes, it was always written that way. I like the idea of doing this smaller cast and seeing-- I was an actor for a long time and there's nothing wrong with the small part, of course, but I thought maybe it might be nice to have to give people more to do, so then we started conflating roles into one actor.

Alison Stewart: We're talking about the play, Primary Trust, which is at the Roundabout until July 2nd. My guests are actor William Jackson Harper and Eboni Booth, the playwright. This is where we're going to not exactly spoiler, but reveal something that happens early on in the play. If you don't want to hear this-- it doesn't really ruin anything. The surprise is a little bit of a surprise because there are a lot of surprises in the play. William, what did you think when you read this script and you came upon the moment when we discover that Kenneth is the only person who can see Bert?

William: I think that was the moment where-- sometimes you have a moment where you're like-- for some reason your heart breaks for somebody. It's not because of something that you're watching something tragic happen to them, but it's like, "Oh, snap. You're coping with something, you're dealing with something that I don't understand yet, but you're doing your best." I think at that moment, for me, it was like, "Oh, this guy is full-on having a life with this person that only he can see. What does that mean?" I think that maybe when I was younger, maybe it would've just been something that I would've been like, "Oh, whoa, wow." I think just laughed it off.

I think that maybe as I get older, these things take on a different significance and it's just like, "Huh, what is that about?" It's just like there's a lot of curiosity and it just-- I think that maybe just some of the things that we had learned about Kenneth early on, it wasn't leaning into this thing of we're just going to laugh at the foibles of having a person in your life that only you see. It seems like there's more going on. All of a sudden, I was like, "I don't really know where this play is going." When I first read it, I was like, "I really don't know where this is headed." It doesn't feel like-- I don't think I can call it. I don't think I can predict where we're going with any of this, but I'm curious.

I feel for the guy, and then you go on the journey of this whole play. I remember when I first read it, I actually stood up at the end of it and I turned to my partner who was sitting literally right next to me at her desk and I was just like, "Damn, that's pretty special." I guess to answer your question, that's a long way of just saying like it just meant that something is-- it just made the world shift in a way that I'm like, "Now I don't know what to expect anymore, and I don't know where we're going." I think that's good.

Alison Stewart: The name of the play is Primary Trust. It is at the Roundabout Theater. My guests have been William Jackson Harper and playwright Eboni Booth. Thanks for making time today.

Eboni: Thank you so much for having us, Alison.

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