“The Big Song” and the Great Broadway Moment for Sharon D Clarke


“Every time Rose calls Carolyn, I scare her,” Clarke said. “Anytime.”

Clarke, the daughter of a tailor and carpenter, sees playing Caroline as “a chance to honor all the maids, all the women, all the single mothers, all the Black women who are trying to make their way in this life.”

“In a way for me,” he added, “it honors my mother, who came to England from Jamaica in the ’50s and set up a new path for us in a society that didn’t want them. You know: ‘No black, no Irish, no dog.’”

Racism and the accelerating struggle for civil rights are central themes of “Caroline or Change,” which had its Broadway premiere directed by George C. Wolfe and starring Pinkins, Anika Noni Rose as Caroline’s hot teenage daughter, Emmie.

Tesori, who says Clarke is a “nice collaborator”, is impressed by a certain quality she believes Clarke and Pinkins have in common.

“These women who have taken the stage,” he said, “I always feel that they are incredibly fragile and incredibly resilient. It has something to do with their ability to go to what I call DFC, down [expletive] center and own it. There is no question as to whether they should be there.”

Kushner based the show in part on her own childhood at Lake Charles, while Caroline loosely based the show on Maudie Lee Davis, who worked for her family and allowed her to dedicate it to her. “I think that’s my favorite thing,” she said of her writings.

She was in London for rehearsals of “Angels in America” at the National Theater in 2017 when Longhurst invited her to what she said would be a tough transition in the first act of “Caroline.” He warned that Clarke, who was starring in a West End show at the time, would not be singing. Yet Kushner, who was just starting out at the time, thought it was “one of the most exciting performances I’ve ever seen.”



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