By the Way, Meet Vera Stark

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by Lynn Nottage

Juilliard Drama
director: Lucie Tiberghien

set: Dan Conway
lighting: Peter West
projections: Dan Scully
sound: Broken Chord Collective
photos: Jessica Katz

Nottage explores racial stereotyping in 1930's Hollywood and beyond, blending a screwball comedy style with biting undertones. Vera Stark, an aspiring African-American actress, works as a maid for a narcissistic white movie star. Vera eventually carves out her own place in Hollywood, but it comes with many compromises, and her controversial, marginalized career leaves a troubling legacy for the film scholars of the future. The play asks questions we are infamously still struggling with today about race in the American entertainment industry--and exactly what we are each willing to sacrifice, in order to pursue our dreams.