November 10, 2023 • 10 mins
Philadelphia Theatre Company presents the Philadelphia debut of Obie Award-winning artist/director/actor and playwright Whitney White’s spellbinding take on a Shakespearean standard, Macbeth in Stride performed now through November 19th. I interviewed the dynamic Whitney White about the musical which examines what it means to be an ambitious Black woman through the lens of one of Shakespeare’s most iconic characters. This 90-minute rock musical uses pop, gospel, and R&B to trace the fatalistic arc of Lady Macbeth while lifting contemporary Black female power, femininity, and desire.
Philadelphia Theater Company’s MacBeth in Stride
Philadelphia Theater Company’s MacBeth in Stride
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Good morning, and welcome to Insight, a show about empowering our community.
I'm Lorraine Ballot Morrow. Want toquit the smoking habit? We've got resources.
Are you ready for the aac ourPhiladelphia Marathon. We've got some advice,
but first, Philadelphia Theater Company ispresenting the Philadelphia debut of Obie Award
winning artist, director, actor,and playwright Whitney White's spellbinding take on a
(00:23):
Shakespearean standard, Macbeth in Stride,performing now through November nineteenth. We're delighted
to speak with Whitney White. Ihaven't seen the play yet, but I
did see the trailer and it looksamazing. This is a musical. It
has pop, it's got gospel,R and B. The three witches we
usually associate with Macbeth look like agirl groups. Tell us what are we
(00:47):
going to experience when we come seeMacbeth and Strive? Thank you for having
me. I've been loving Philadelphia somuch, so when you come in to
Macbeth and Stride, you are goingto be met with a new Rock is
a goal that takes the story ofLady Macbeth and weaves together Shakespeare's language,
original music, and contemporary language tokind of take you through her narrative arc.
(01:10):
You're going to see a new musicalthat's dealing with a story that you
know very well. Probably, Well, let's talk about the character that you
play, the woman. She isambitious and a woman's ambition, particularly in
that time, that was often stifled. And yet there she was pushing her
husband forward, pushing him towards disaster, but also pushing him towards greatness at
(01:34):
the same time. Tell us moreabout her, her motivation and how you,
as a black woman in how doesthat inflect your performance and the way
the play frames the character of LadyMacbeth. Well, I'll start off by
saying, what always gets me excitedabout doing this work and also frightens me
about the work, is how relevantit was. These plays were written over
(01:57):
four hundred years ago, and yetyou read this story of the woman who
wants more for herself and the factthat she can only get it through her
husband's ambition, and that still ringsso true to us now. So there's
a lot about Shakespeare's time and infact, the story of the Macbeths that
feels not applicable to today. Youknow, they're going for the crown,
(02:19):
they want to be king and queen. We want other things today, and
yet there's so much that just directlytranslates how fraught heterosexual marriage can be,
how complex it can be to wantmore out of life and not know how
to get it, and ultimately howmuch the little corners we cut, lies
we tell, and bad things wedo affect us a lot more than we
(02:43):
think. When I first read theplay Macbeth by Shakespeare, I was struck
by how much it made sense tome, and how much it sounded familiar
to me, and how much shereminded me of women I knew from You
know, every woman I know wantsmore for herself, and she might define
what she wants in different ways.But when you distill ambition down to a
(03:06):
kind of quintessential thing of just wantingmore, then the story becomes incredibly relatable
and really translate. I just thoughtto myself, you know, I want
to share this story in a waythat it makes sense to me. When
I read Shakespeare's plays, I seeyou in those plays, I see me
in those plays. I see lotsof people. All the world's a stage,
after all, So then how comesso often when I'm seeing these plays,
(03:28):
I'm not seeing the world on thestage, and that was really the
base. Those are the kind ofinitial inquiry of the show and how I
started making it was like when Iread the play, I hear myself.
So I want to share that withyou all, and hopefully it will make
you all want to see the nextShakespeare play you read about a lot more.
It will make you want to cometo the futer. Yeah. You
know, when I was growing up, I love Shakespeare, and yet I
(03:51):
never saw myself in the plays.And I always felt frustrated because I loved
Romeo and Juliet, and I didn'tsee how I could play Juliet. Although
now we have this kind of newway of casting actors that is I wouldn't
say color unconscious, but definitely alternativecasting. That is so exciting and so
(04:16):
wonderful to have the opportunities to playthese roles that traditionally were only played well
back in the day, only bywhite men. But you know, certainly
women of color did not have thatopportunity. Now you've created that opportunity for
yourself in a very specific and verydelightful way. So tell I wonder if
(04:39):
you can talk a little bit aboutthe whole idea of the way that plays
are cast, are acting in playsand movies, and all the different things
that are out there, and howwe're starting to see more available diversity and
cultural competence in some of the playsthat we're seeing these days and reimagining.
(04:59):
Thank you for that question. It'ssuch a squirrely one my answer for this,
because on some levels, we areseeing more makers who have been typically
excluded from art making processes and mediamaking processes come to the forefront. And
I'm not the first one to belooking at these plays. We are living
in a time where a lot ofpeople are looking at the classics and questioning
(05:21):
what they are, why they're classic, and what they mean to us now.
And I'm grateful for the other artistswho are also engaged with that project.
I do want to say that,you know, it's not just that
Macbeth and Stride is quote unquote diversecast. I know that's not what you're
saying. It's that I've chosen tomake a narrative arc in which I can
be at home in and at homeon stage in. And I think that
(05:45):
that for a long time that feltvery unachievable to a lot of people,
and now doing the work here inBoston, in DC and seeing so many
audience members being moved by it andseeing themselves in it and just being enjoying
a night at the because I willsay, you know, while I have
these political goals and I want tosee myself reflected on stage, I want
you to feel reflected on stage.A want you to have a great fricking
(06:08):
time and a night out at thetheater. I really love the theater.
I believe in live performance, andI feel so many times you go see
a play and you don't go awaysatiated, you don't go away full.
And so this is also rock musical, not just because I have a question
about Shakespeare and a kind of politicalaspiration to interrogate what those plays mean for
us today. But I also wantyou to come back and be like,
(06:30):
oh my god, I'm a theaterlover once again. So there's a lot
going on in the play in termsof the way we perform, in the
style of music to draw you in, no matter who you are. I
want to pull everybody into the world. I want women of color to be
pulled in because they can know immediatelythis is for them, and I want
the kind of most conservative Shakespeare loverto be pulled in and be like,
(06:53):
oh, yeah, this is whattheater is. It's a live and it's
new. That's really been the projectof this I love that. And I'd
like to talk about the Three Witchesbecause they are iconic in the play.
Tell us how you utilize the ThreeWitches, because as I was looking at
the trailer for the play, theycome across as being like, you know,
(07:15):
the background singers or maybe even theSupremes. You know, three women
on stage does evoke that. Tellus how you kind of weave the imagery
of that into the play and intothe message of the play. I love
that you just brought up the Supremesbecause you know, if I were to
just sit here and ask, okay, three black women on the stage,
(07:38):
what do you think of the tropesand kind of things that images that come
to your mind are going to be? Anything from the Three Supremes to another
musical theater piece with three singing blackwomen, whether it's Caroline or Change or
Little Shop of Horror. There's somany shows that take three black women and
just throw them in there and youdon't know that much about them, but
(08:00):
they sing really fabulously. So theidea of who these three women are,
it's coming from a lot of places. But I will tell you, for
a long time, there were nowitches in this piece because I started developing
this in twenty fifteen, and itstarted out very much with me at a
piano with like a friend playing theguitar, and there was not even a
man. It was just me.And then slowly the man came into focus
(08:22):
and there was something missing and Icouldn't explain what it was, but there's
something missing. And I went backand read Shakespeare's text, and that play
starts with those three women, Whenshall we three meet again? It's the
first line. The play doesn't startwith Macbeth. It starts with these witches
conjuring. And I'm like, well, that's what I'm missing, because what
(08:43):
is a witch? It's a derogatoryterm. It's something we've also reclaimed and
we get power from. And it'slike, when I think of three powerful
women, I think of my aunts, these three incredible aunts. I think
of my friends. I think ofmy little rivals in middle school, and
I think of the girls I usedto sing with on the courtyard at lunch
(09:03):
hour, you know, and sothe witches are all of those things.
They are my sisters, my competitors. You know, I feel like which
number two if I make one wrongmove, she can push me off the
stage and do it. You knowwhich number one feels like my teacher and
which number three feels like my littlesister. And I just wanted to feel
like Lady Macbeth is not alone inthe world. I think so many times
(09:26):
in these narratives these women are allalone. But when you look at her
language, unsex me here and she'stalking to the spirits in that famous monologue.
Well, the wages are the spirits, so why not let them talk
to each other? And then youhave four black women singing, which is
amazing. So at times I hopewe do give you in vogue. At
times I do hope we give youa little bibitty bobby boop. I hope
that you experience all of the manyimages that we can be while we're on
(09:50):
stage together. The play is Macbethin Stride, a dazzling theatrical event created
and performed by Obie Award winning artistWhitney White. Macbeth in Stride excit Emmen's
what it Means to be an ambitiousblack woman through the lens of one of
Shakespeare's most iconic characters, Whitney White. Thank you so much for joining us
today. Thank you come to seeus. We're playing here until November nineteenth
(10:13):
at Philadelphia Theater Company on the Avenueof the Arts. We'll have more insight
after these messages.
Good morning, and welcome to Insight, a show about empowering our community.
I'm Lorraine Ballot Morrow. Want toquit the smoking habit? We've got resources.
Are you ready for the aac ourPhiladelphia Marathon. We've got some advice,
but first, Philadelphia Theater Company ispresenting the Philadelphia debut of Obie Award
winning artist, director, actor,and playwright Whitney White's spellbinding take on a
(00:23):
Shakespearean standard, Macbeth in Stride,performing now through November nineteenth. We're delighted
to speak with Whitney White. Ihaven't seen the play yet, but I
did see the trailer and it looksamazing. This is a musical. It
has pop, it's got gospel,R and B. The three witches we
usually associate with Macbeth look like agirl groups. Tell us what are we
(00:47):
going to experience when we come seeMacbeth and Strive? Thank you for having
me. I've been loving Philadelphia somuch, so when you come in to
Macbeth and Stride, you are goingto be met with a new Rock is
a goal that takes the story ofLady Macbeth and weaves together Shakespeare's language,
original music, and contemporary language tokind of take you through her narrative arc.
(01:10):
You're going to see a new musicalthat's dealing with a story that you
know very well. Probably, Well, let's talk about the character that you
play, the woman. She isambitious and a woman's ambition, particularly in
that time, that was often stifled. And yet there she was pushing her
husband forward, pushing him towards disaster, but also pushing him towards greatness at
(01:34):
the same time. Tell us moreabout her, her motivation and how you,
as a black woman in how doesthat inflect your performance and the way
the play frames the character of LadyMacbeth. Well, I'll start off by
saying, what always gets me excitedabout doing this work and also frightens me
about the work, is how relevantit was. These plays were written over
(01:57):
four hundred years ago, and yetyou read this story of the woman who
wants more for herself and the factthat she can only get it through her
husband's ambition, and that still ringsso true to us now. So there's
a lot about Shakespeare's time and infact, the story of the Macbeths that
feels not applicable to today. Youknow, they're going for the crown,
(02:19):
they want to be king and queen. We want other things today, and
yet there's so much that just directlytranslates how fraught heterosexual marriage can be,
how complex it can be to wantmore out of life and not know how
to get it, and ultimately howmuch the little corners we cut, lies
we tell, and bad things wedo affect us a lot more than we
(02:43):
think. When I first read theplay Macbeth by Shakespeare, I was struck
by how much it made sense tome, and how much it sounded familiar
to me, and how much shereminded me of women I knew from You
know, every woman I know wantsmore for herself, and she might define
what she wants in different ways.But when you distill ambition down to a
(03:06):
kind of quintessential thing of just wantingmore, then the story becomes incredibly relatable
and really translate. I just thoughtto myself, you know, I want
to share this story in a waythat it makes sense to me. When
I read Shakespeare's plays, I seeyou in those plays, I see me
in those plays. I see lotsof people. All the world's a stage,
after all, So then how comesso often when I'm seeing these plays,
(03:28):
I'm not seeing the world on thestage, and that was really the
base. Those are the kind ofinitial inquiry of the show and how I
started making it was like when Iread the play, I hear myself.
So I want to share that withyou all, and hopefully it will make
you all want to see the nextShakespeare play you read about a lot more.
It will make you want to cometo the futer. Yeah. You
know, when I was growing up, I love Shakespeare, and yet I
(03:51):
never saw myself in the plays.And I always felt frustrated because I loved
Romeo and Juliet, and I didn'tsee how I could play Juliet. Although
now we have this kind of newway of casting actors that is I wouldn't
say color unconscious, but definitely alternativecasting. That is so exciting and so
(04:16):
wonderful to have the opportunities to playthese roles that traditionally were only played well
back in the day, only bywhite men. But you know, certainly
women of color did not have thatopportunity. Now you've created that opportunity for
yourself in a very specific and verydelightful way. So tell I wonder if
(04:39):
you can talk a little bit aboutthe whole idea of the way that plays
are cast, are acting in playsand movies, and all the different things
that are out there, and howwe're starting to see more available diversity and
cultural competence in some of the playsthat we're seeing these days and reimagining.
(04:59):
Thank you for that question. It'ssuch a squirrely one my answer for this,
because on some levels, we areseeing more makers who have been typically
excluded from art making processes and mediamaking processes come to the forefront. And
I'm not the first one to belooking at these plays. We are living
in a time where a lot ofpeople are looking at the classics and questioning
(05:21):
what they are, why they're classic, and what they mean to us now.
And I'm grateful for the other artistswho are also engaged with that project.
I do want to say that,you know, it's not just that
Macbeth and Stride is quote unquote diversecast. I know that's not what you're
saying. It's that I've chosen tomake a narrative arc in which I can
be at home in and at homeon stage in. And I think that
(05:45):
that for a long time that feltvery unachievable to a lot of people,
and now doing the work here inBoston, in DC and seeing so many
audience members being moved by it andseeing themselves in it and just being enjoying
a night at the because I willsay, you know, while I have
these political goals and I want tosee myself reflected on stage, I want
you to feel reflected on stage.A want you to have a great fricking
(06:08):
time and a night out at thetheater. I really love the theater.
I believe in live performance, andI feel so many times you go see
a play and you don't go awaysatiated, you don't go away full.
And so this is also rock musical, not just because I have a question
about Shakespeare and a kind of politicalaspiration to interrogate what those plays mean for
us today. But I also wantyou to come back and be like,
(06:30):
oh my god, I'm a theaterlover once again. So there's a lot
going on in the play in termsof the way we perform, in the
style of music to draw you in, no matter who you are. I
want to pull everybody into the world. I want women of color to be
pulled in because they can know immediatelythis is for them, and I want
the kind of most conservative Shakespeare loverto be pulled in and be like,
(06:53):
oh, yeah, this is whattheater is. It's a live and it's
new. That's really been the projectof this I love that. And I'd
like to talk about the Three Witchesbecause they are iconic in the play.
Tell us how you utilize the ThreeWitches, because as I was looking at
the trailer for the play, theycome across as being like, you know,
(07:15):
the background singers or maybe even theSupremes. You know, three women
on stage does evoke that. Tellus how you kind of weave the imagery
of that into the play and intothe message of the play. I love
that you just brought up the Supremesbecause you know, if I were to
just sit here and ask, okay, three black women on the stage,
(07:38):
what do you think of the tropesand kind of things that images that come
to your mind are going to be? Anything from the Three Supremes to another
musical theater piece with three singing blackwomen, whether it's Caroline or Change or
Little Shop of Horror. There's somany shows that take three black women and
just throw them in there and youdon't know that much about them, but
(08:00):
they sing really fabulously. So theidea of who these three women are,
it's coming from a lot of places. But I will tell you, for
a long time, there were nowitches in this piece because I started developing
this in twenty fifteen, and itstarted out very much with me at a
piano with like a friend playing theguitar, and there was not even a
man. It was just me.And then slowly the man came into focus
(08:22):
and there was something missing and Icouldn't explain what it was, but there's
something missing. And I went backand read Shakespeare's text, and that play
starts with those three women, Whenshall we three meet again? It's the
first line. The play doesn't startwith Macbeth. It starts with these witches
conjuring. And I'm like, well, that's what I'm missing, because what
(08:43):
is a witch? It's a derogatoryterm. It's something we've also reclaimed and
we get power from. And it'slike, when I think of three powerful
women, I think of my aunts, these three incredible aunts. I think
of my friends. I think ofmy little rivals in middle school, and
I think of the girls I usedto sing with on the courtyard at lunch
(09:03):
hour, you know, and sothe witches are all of those things.
They are my sisters, my competitors. You know, I feel like which
number two if I make one wrongmove, she can push me off the
stage and do it. You knowwhich number one feels like my teacher and
which number three feels like my littlesister. And I just wanted to feel
like Lady Macbeth is not alone inthe world. I think so many times
(09:26):
in these narratives these women are allalone. But when you look at her
language, unsex me here and she'stalking to the spirits in that famous monologue.
Well, the wages are the spirits, so why not let them talk
to each other? And then youhave four black women singing, which is
amazing. So at times I hopewe do give you in vogue. At
times I do hope we give youa little bibitty bobby boop. I hope
that you experience all of the manyimages that we can be while we're on
(09:50):
stage together. The play is Macbethin Stride, a dazzling theatrical event created
and performed by Obie Award winning artistWhitney White. Macbeth in Stride excit Emmen's
what it Means to be an ambitiousblack woman through the lens of one of
Shakespeare's most iconic characters, Whitney White. Thank you so much for joining us
today. Thank you come to seeus. We're playing here until November nineteenth
(10:13):
at Philadelphia Theater Company on the Avenueof the Arts. We'll have more insight
after these messages.
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