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[0:00] Tonya Pinkins: Hi, this is Tonya Pinkins, and you're listening to my podcast.

[0:04] Tonya Pinkins: You can't say that.

[0:05] Tonya Pinkins: The show where you can on the Broadway Podcast Network.

[0:14] Tonya Pinkins: I had a story about my next guest, and it was that I knew him when he was an intern for George C. Wolfe.

[0:21] Tonya Pinkins: And now whenever I ran into him, he acted like he didn't know me and gave me shade.

[0:27] Tonya Pinkins: I was predisposed to dislike everything he did because of that.

[0:31] Tonya Pinkins: And then came Slave Play, which I love despite my understanding of all the arguments about why it is dangerous and harmful to Black people.

[0:41] Tonya Pinkins: Truth is often polarizing.

[0:43] Tonya Pinkins: So join me in welcoming playwright director Robert O'Hara.

[0:49] Tonya Pinkins: This is Tonya Pinkins, and I'm at the Broadway Podcast Network Studio in Midtown Manhattan.

[0:56] Tonya Pinkins: And this is the You Can't Say That Podcast.

[0:58] Tonya Pinkins: And my special guest today is Robert O'Hara, playwright, screenwriter, director, extraordinaire, currently represented on Broadway.

[1:10] Tonya Pinkins: Only I think the fifth man, Black man to direct on Broadway with Slave Play.

[1:15] Tonya Pinkins: You're looking at me askance, but I think only five men have directed on Broadway, and I don't think a Black woman has directed on Broadway.

[1:22] Robert O Hara: What is your recognition?

[1:23] Tonya Pinkins: Rick Rick.

[1:24] Tonya Pinkins: I don't think so.

[1:25] Tonya Pinkins: Who directed for Color Girls?

[1:28] Robert O Hara: Uh, was it on Broadway?

[1:29] Tonya Pinkins: Oz.

[1:30] Robert O Hara: So that's Oz.

[1:31] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[1:31] Robert O Hara: Oscott.

[1:32] Tonya Pinkins: Um no, Lisa.

[1:34] Robert O Hara: Lisa Tommy.

[1:35] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, right.

[1:35] Tonya Pinkins: Liesel.

[1:35] Robert O Hara: So I for uh Liesel, so that's one woman.

[1:37] Robert O Hara: She directed uh eclipsed.

[1:39] Tonya Pinkins: Liesel, Robert, Ruben, George, George, Lloyd, Kenny, and uh the whiz, uh, Joffrey.

[1:48] Robert O Hara: Yes.

[1:49] Tonya Pinkins: So that's eight.

[1:50] Robert O Hara: Yes.

[1:51] Tonya Pinkins: Three more than I knew.

[1:52] Robert O Hara: I'm sure.

[1:53] Tonya Pinkins: Did Ozzy Davis direct anything on Broadway?

[1:56] Robert O Hara: I don't know.

[1:57] Robert O Hara: I don't think so.

[1:58] Tonya Pinkins: I looked it up before I came in today and Liesel didn't come up there, but there were no women there.

[2:03] Tonya Pinkins: Did Vanette Carroll direct anything on Broadway?

[2:05] Robert O Hara: Arms Too Short?

[2:05] Tonya Pinkins: I think so.

[2:06] Robert O Hara: Maybe Arms Too Short.

[2:07] Tonya Pinkins: So two women.

[2:08] Robert O Hara: Yeah.

[2:08] Tonya Pinkins: Two women.

[2:09] Tonya Pinkins: You're in an illustrious and very elite small group artist.

[2:14] Robert O Hara: Well, I'm I think that you're gonna change that.

[2:14] Robert O Hara: You're gonna change that.

[2:19] Tonya Pinkins: So we be before we started, you said you don't like your voice.

[2:21] Tonya Pinkins: Why not?

[2:23] Robert O Hara: I don't know.

[2:24] Robert O Hara: You know, my grandmother always said, um, she was always telling me that I was too loud.

[2:31] Robert O Hara: And that her voice she would say something like, you know, your voice rings all through me like a bell clapper on a goose's ass.

[2:38] Robert O Hara: And then she would start to cackle, and I would start to cackle.

[2:42] Robert O Hara: And I was like, that sounds fully crazy.

[2:45] Robert O Hara: But that actually sounds like a bit of a compliment.

[2:47] Robert O Hara: Your voice rings through me like a bell clapper on a goose's ass.

[2:51] Robert O Hara: And what is that exactly?

[2:53] Robert O Hara: It was something evocative.

[2:56] Robert O Hara: Exactly.

[2:57] Robert O Hara: But that was Granny.

[2:59] Tonya Pinkins: So I last night I watched Inheritance.

[3:02] Robert O Hara: Oh god.

[3:03] Robert O Hara: Do we have to begin there?

[3:04] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, come on.

[3:05] Tonya Pinkins: I love horror.

[3:07] Tonya Pinkins: It is my thing.

[3:07] Tonya Pinkins: And you did a play called Zombie the American.

[3:11] Tonya Pinkins: Are you into horror?

[3:11] Robert O Hara: Is that your thing?

[3:12] Robert O Hara: I like horror too.

[3:13] Robert O Hara: I really do.

[3:14] Robert O Hara: I'm I'm a scaredy cat, which is odd that I like horror, but I do like it.

[3:19] Robert O Hara: Uh my partner hates it and will laugh at the most inappropriate times.

[3:23] Robert O Hara: But I actually have a friend, and all we do because his wife also can't deal with horror movies.

[3:28] Robert O Hara: So we will get together and like watch any horror movie that we can find, actually.

[3:32] Tonya Pinkins: What's your most favorite recently?

[3:34] Robert O Hara: Uh you know, I liked uh uh Baba Duck.

[3:39] Tonya Pinkins: I love the Baba Duck, Jennifer Kent.

[3:41] Robert O Hara: Yeah, that was fantastic.

[3:42] Robert O Hara: I also love uh Midsummer.

[3:44] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, midsummer, I saw that three times.

[3:47] Robert O Hara: And he also did hereditary.

[3:48] Tonya Pinkins: Yes, Ariaster.

[3:50] Robert O Hara: He was amazing.

[3:51] Robert O Hara: Uh so I like that sort of creepy stuff, you know.

[3:54] Tonya Pinkins: So tell me about uh inheritance.

[3:56] Robert O Hara: I I enjoyed it.

[3:57] Robert O Hara: Uh you know, it was uh as I was saying to you before, it's sort of like all I see is the mistakes.

[4:04] Robert O Hara: And all I notice is oh my god, I can't believe that we're supposed to buy this.

[4:10] Robert O Hara: Uh the idea uh came a while ago, and it was used to be called um My Place in the Horror.

[4:17] Robert O Hara: Uh and then it was changed, and I was told that it was changed after we filmed it.

[4:22] Tonya Pinkins: By who?

[4:23] Robert O Hara: The producer.

[4:23] Tonya Pinkins: Oh.

[4:24] Robert O Hara: Uh, just like, oh yeah, we changed the title.

[4:26] Robert O Hara: By that time I was done.

[4:27] Robert O Hara: By that time I was like, you know what, you could do whatever you want with it.

[4:30] Robert O Hara: Um, but it was quite an experience because I had been on film sets, but uh it was made with, you know, I got to the film set and immediately the producer came up to me.

[4:43] Robert O Hara: She was like, you know, we have uh things we have to do with.

[4:45] Robert O Hara: We first of all, um we had we're over budget, and I'm like, we haven't done anything, but we're over budget, and you have to cut like 20 minutes from the movie, uh go.

[4:56] Robert O Hara: Uh and this was we filmed in the middle of Minnesota, uh right outside Minnesota in a snowstorm.

[5:02] Robert O Hara: Uh so it was cra I don't know why I decided to film or to set a horror movie with Black people in the snow.

[5:10] Robert O Hara: And one of the characters actually says that.

[5:13] Robert O Hara: When I got there, I was like, this is the stupidest, craziest idea.

[5:17] Robert O Hara: And we kept going, why are we here?

[5:20] Robert O Hara: And that became a motif in the film, you know.

[5:22] Robert O Hara: Like, why in the middle of a snow storm?

[5:25] Robert O Hara: Um, but that's what I thought would be cool, actually.

[5:28] Robert O Hara: And it was very cool and very creepy, all these things sludged on the windows with the snow outside.

[5:34] Robert O Hara: I loved having I think about it now, and I haven't watched it in so long, but Novella Nelson was in it, Andre de Shows, Keith David, Adrian Lennox.

[5:42] Robert O Hara: Yeah, all the Broadway divas were in there.

[5:45] Robert O Hara: It was so much fun to be able to work with them also, you know, and you know, and there's sort of cameo parts in a way.

[5:51] Robert O Hara: Uh so that is actually what I I take from it actually, and also learning from it.

[5:56] Robert O Hara: Uh, and and I think that you know everything can be a learning lesson, and this was certainly a learning lesson because it's sort of like walking in on tech, you know, and where you usually get four weeks to sort of sit in a room and prepare for tech.

[6:12] Robert O Hara: This is like, oh, now you're in the middle of tech.

[6:15] Robert O Hara: Uh, and that was sort of crazy town to me.

[6:18] Robert O Hara: And that all these people there waiting for you to figure stuff out was very strange to me, actually.

[6:24] Robert O Hara: Now that was it came out in 2011, so you must have made it in 2010.

[6:29] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[6:30] Tonya Pinkins: So 10 years, when's the next movie coming?

[6:33] Robert O Hara: What's happening?

[6:34] Robert O Hara: You know, I'm not chasing that dream.

[6:36] Robert O Hara: It has to be because I've always told myself, you know, the next movie I make has to have money involved.

[6:43] Robert O Hara: I'm not gonna be, you know, hoping that we can make a budget.

[6:47] Robert O Hara: Uh and also uh the time needed to put it together.

[6:51] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[6:52] Robert O Hara: Um so uh that and that's something sort of and I don't have the time in my schedule to sort of devote my life to trying to make another movie.

[7:00] Robert O Hara: So uh I've had conversations and there are things percolating, but uh I'm not sort of like focused right now on trying to make that happen.

[7:07] Robert O Hara: If it happens, it'd be fantastic.

[7:09] Robert O Hara: If it doesn't, um I'm so happy.

[7:11] Tonya Pinkins: So you love writing and directing in the theater more than you loved writing and directing on film?

[7:16] Robert O Hara: Only because I didn't know what the hell I was doing uh on film.

[7:20] Robert O Hara: And so I think the next time I do it, I will like it as much as I like writing and directing.

[7:25] Robert O Hara: It's like, you know, uh I've been writing directing for almost a quarter of a century.

[7:30] Robert O Hara: And so that has been like second nature to me.

[7:33] Robert O Hara: Yeah, I started in ninety-two.

[7:36] Tonya Pinkins: Um did we meet at Jelly Slash Jam?

[7:38] Robert O Hara: No, I actually was in college.

[7:40] Robert O Hara: I didn't know that's a intern.

[7:43] Robert O Hara: But that was after Jelly Slash Jam.

[7:45] Robert O Hara: I was George's uh uh uh intern in his office when I was in graduate school, and he was directing Angels in America when uh I wasn't there for Angels in America.

[7:53] Tonya Pinkins: No, no, no.

[7:54] Tonya Pinkins: I saw you on Broadway, and I think it was it I was right at the end of college growing into graduate school.

[8:01] Robert O Hara: Okay.

[8:01] Tonya Pinkins: Uh yeah.

[8:02] Tonya Pinkins: That's when I and I don't think I met you there.

[8:04] Robert O Hara: I we must have met at George's house or George's party or something.

[8:07] Tonya Pinkins: Wow, because I I just feel like you were around all the time and at a show that I was rehearsing with George, but that's clearly an invented memory.

[8:14] Robert O Hara: Completely invented.

[8:15] Robert O Hara: Wow.

[8:16] Tonya Pinkins: But there's a lot of really interesting stuff about you online.

[8:20] Robert O Hara: Oh god.

[8:21] Robert O Hara: Um I was fascinated by the fact that you, you know, said you used to write nasty stories when you were a kid.

[8:27] Robert O Hara: Like I I I wrote what I guess my teacher thought were nasty stories when I was a kid, because she took my my original novel and destroyed it, ripped it into shreds in front of the whole classroom.

[8:37] Tonya Pinkins: How old were you?

[8:38] Robert O Hara: I was in fourth grade.

[8:39] Tonya Pinkins: Oh my god.

[8:40] Robert O Hara: And I've been working on it since I was six, and so I was nine, and and it sort of scarred me for a long time.

[8:45] Tonya Pinkins: So what kind of nasty stories did you write?

[8:47] Robert O Hara: Well, you know, when I was a kid, I would write um adult stories, and then I was like, I was reading uh Lauren Sanders and Sidney Sheldon and Stephen King.

[8:58] Robert O Hara: And I like my mother would be like, Oh, you're going to the library.

[9:01] Robert O Hara: Yeah, I'm going to the library.

[9:02] Robert O Hara: But I would be picking up Stephen King in the latest sort of like, you know, Sidney Sheldon romance or Jackie Collins.

[9:08] Tonya Pinkins: So what were your what would you have your friends doing in your stories?

[9:11] Robert O Hara: Well, it wasn't like it was outrageous only because it was like, you know, I remember this one story about going to the optometrist, and it was horror more than sexual, really.

[9:23] Robert O Hara: Uh and uh it was like, you know, you know, what happens if you someone takes their eyes out, or uh and you have to like function during that uh moment of someone just pulling your eyes out.

[9:34] Robert O Hara: I do remember one dirty story that I wrote, and I don't know really what it was, but I do remember distinctly showing it to a friend of mine, and he's like, Can I take it home?

[9:47] Robert O Hara: And I'm like, sure, whatever.

[9:49] Robert O Hara: And he brought it back and it was soiled.

[9:51] Robert O Hara: And I was like, I don't know what happened to my manuscript, but you did something to it, right?

[9:56] Robert O Hara: Oh, and I didn't know what that meant or anything.

[9:58] Robert O Hara: But I knew that other people began asking me for my story.

[10:02] Tonya Pinkins: So you were writing erotica and you didn't know it.

[10:04] Robert O Hara: Didn't know it, had no idea.

[10:06] Robert O Hara: But I had been reading erotica, and I was like, it was sort of crazy.

[10:10] Robert O Hara: I remember going to a flea market with my grandmother who had sayings for everything, and I remember going up to this one man, and I saw something called Oriental Mouth Girl.

[10:19] Robert O Hara: And I was like, What?

[10:21] Robert O Hara: What is possibly does this mean?

[10:23] Robert O Hara: And in fact, this man sold this to a child.

[10:26] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, and I was and I keep thinking about them.

[10:28] Tonya Pinkins: I was like, first of all, the book is outrageous, the title is outrageous, and that you would sell this to a child is crazy town.

[10:34] Robert O Hara: But I would like, you know, and what was Oriental Mouth Girls?

[10:37] Robert O Hara: No idea.

[10:38] Tonya Pinkins: Did you read it?

[10:39] Robert O Hara: I'm sure I did.

[10:40] Robert O Hara: But you don't remember.

[10:41] Tonya Pinkins: I don't remember.

[10:41] Robert O Hara: And I remember there was like these books called like truly tasteless jokes or what have you.

[10:46] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[10:46] Robert O Hara: And it was like a compilation of jokes and whatever. Anything I could get my hands on, I would just read. I was I I read a lot of different things because I got out of Encyclopedia Brown and the sort of you know kids' book very early on, actually. And I don't know why that was, but I mean I remember reading it when I was a kid. And I it took me almost a half a year because I was terrified to read it.

[11:07] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, it I'm too scared of that.

[11:08] Robert O Hara: My imagination is too scary. Yes. And I'm a I'm a complete scaredy cat. So like if you close the door and there's something hanging on the back of the door, I have to like I can't sleep in a room with the door open. It can't happen. Um I can't sleep in a room with something hanging on the back of anything. And yet I'm drawn to I was drawn to these, you know, erotic but also scary stories at the same time.

[11:29] Tonya Pinkins: So you must have read the story of oh.

[11:32] Robert O Hara: No. Oh I didn't read the story of it. I've heard of the story of uh, but I didn't. And I think I stopped reading stuff. Uh this was like stuff I would pick up here and there, because I didn't think of myself as being someone interested in it. I was just like just following breadcrumbs or what have you. I remember there was a movie called The Realm of the Census.

[11:51] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, in the realm of the senses, which I I saw and I was like, I can't believe this exists, actually. But that was like in college. But I have heard of the story of oh, but I've never read it. Who um were so we know Stephen King was an inspiration for you and uh Sidney Sheldon. Would you say that they are inspiring the work that you still do today? Who's inspiring you right now?

[12:11] Robert O Hara: No, and then when I got to you know, high school and college, it became sort of, you know, Toni Morrison, Sinalis Childress, James Baldwin, you know, uh did you mix some Sidney Sheldon and Stephen King into that?

[12:22] Tonya Pinkins: Well, by then I was like, you know, I had already read most of it. And so every time Sidney Sheldon would come out with a book, I would I would do it. But you know, life is too short. You know, Stephen King's books are like, you know, these big tomes now, and it's like it takes so much energy and time. And he puts one out every five minutes. So like I feel like I could read that for the rest of my life. Uh and uh Jackie Collins, I would start re I continue to read it, but mostly because of being in college, you have so many things you require to read. And so I would find something interesting in that. And then, you know, Bell Hooks and Audre Lorde, uh, all these different things began to mix into my other writing, uh, my other reading rather than writing. But yeah.

[13:03] Tonya Pinkins: Now you direct your work sometimes, you sometimes don't direct your work. What determines that for you?

[13:12] Robert O Hara: Um it really is about the experience, this the experience I want to have. Because I think that, you know, sometimes you want to be in the space with the work and wrestling with it with other people. And sometimes you just don't want to be there. Sometimes you want to go and watch a movie or read a book or just show up and watch, see what other people are brought into the room. You know, because I think directing is a public event uh and writing is a private event, and sometimes I just want to be private. Um, and so it depends on I usually what I usually do is try to find some space where I can participate in uh directing something in a workshop way or in a reading, just so I can figure certain things out because I think the director can help the writer at certain points in order to hand it off to another director. And then it depends on if the director is really interested.

[14:01] Tonya Pinkins: Uh, and I speak of myself in a third person that way, only because uh it's two different hats. Uh but uh it depends on if I think that I I want to investigate it further than what I've already done, or if I want to watch other people investigate it and come in and see what can be found in it without my being there because sometimes you go into the room and you're the writer or the director, and everyone has all the questions for you, you know, and I want to re and I don't like writers to be in the room all day, every day. I want them to look away and come back. So sometimes I want to look away from the work, and so I'll say, uh, someone else can direct it.

[14:35] Tonya Pinkins: Do you ever get mad with what the actors and the director come up with?

[14:38] Robert O Hara: No, because I ultimately believe that uh everyone should go in a general direction strongly and fully, and rehearsal is for someone to go, you know, no, let's try something else. So there's uh I don't think there's any reason for me to be mad because you know nothing's going to go off or come into the public view without my attention to it, you know. So I don't have to control those moments. Even as a director, I feel like we can spend a lot of time doing this thing, and at any moment we can just turn the ship around to over here. But you have to invest fully in the position or the the direction that you're going.

[15:11] Tonya Pinkins: So I don't put a sort of value judgment on it, whether it's bad or whatever. I think that's what rehearsal is, is to rehearse it, you know, to come back in and find something else. Uh and I found lately in my directing that I don't uh well, I've never really been wanting to take a script home and to sort of mull over it and figure stuff out. I've always felt like I wanted to have the dire the space of the rehearsal embody all of that. So if I'm writing and directing, the room has to stop if the writer has to rewrite something. You know, I'm not going home after seven, eight hours rehearsing and continuing to work. You know, uh, this is my work and this is my time, and so I want to take the time in the rehearsal hall. And there's no reason why I have to spend the rest of my life after this rehearsing the plan.

[15:56] Tonya Pinkins: Do you have like certain writing hours, directing hours, or what what is the span of your day if you're writing and directing?

[16:03] Robert O Hara: Uh well I I you I haven't done an eight-hour day and I don't remember. I I only do six hours.

[16:12] Robert O Hara: Uh uh the straight six. So I uh rehearsal. Uh and so I think that if you come back after uh a lunch or a dinner break, it just changes the dynamic of the room. So I like to go straight through and give 10 minute breaks and then a 20 minute break or whatever, and really concentrate on the work. So uh I don't have a set amount of hours that I write, and I don't have a set amount of hours that uh I'll stop a rehearsal and go, I'm tired, I'm done. Uh let's go home. And my cast is even one of my customs made me a hat that says, I'm tired, I'm going home.

[16:14] Tonya Pinkins: What's that meant?

[16:43] Tonya Pinkins: Uh and it's because I feel like I want to be as present as I can in the room, and that I feel like, you know, rehearsal schedules are made by an arbitrary group of people who have no idea what the process is going to be, as same as people who make up tech schedules and think that you're supposed to tech this show in three days and have a rehearsal, you know, a dress rehearsal here. So I'm like, you know, no, I mean I know what I can do and I know what I do well. And so if, you know, I don't have to spend this six hours sitting around here if we're done with this moment, let's just go home, you know.

[17:14] Tonya Pinkins: And I think you receive that on the back end. The artist receives that, and that everyone in the room goes, you know, we're not having our time wasted just because someone said that the schedule was from 10 to 4. You know, uh, but that what is the work to be done today? If we've done the work, all right, let's go home.

[17:30] Robert O Hara: I like that.

[17:31] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. I like that. Do you feel um like when I was cut when I was coming up, coming into you know, New York, there were so many the the world I think was smaller, like what people were allowed to do. I feel like George Woolfield's to me like the first time a black man got to be a writer and a director. Do you feel that that paved the way for you to do you you do you feel like you have a creative freedom that is a new thing in the world?

[17:56] Robert O Hara: No, you know, and you know, you were right that I was, you know, always around George and uh, you know, he was an uh a mentor of mine, and I saw how he would operate in that space, and that uh we talked at one point about having the audacity to believe that what you have to say and what you bring is worth something. Uh and so much of our existence is trying to, you know, figure out if we actually are worth something, you know.

[18:23] Tonya Pinkins: Uh and and if we are worthy of the attention or worthy of the accolades or what have you, uh and not wanting to take up space, because I don't think that we're taught, uh especially not as African Americans or black Americans to take up space. Uh and to uh and to actually uh um live inside a larger space and you know, we're always trying to be a part of something, but not to take up that much space.

[18:46] Robert O Hara: Uh and George would take up space. Uh and that was exciting to me.

[18:51] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, I was been mulling that a lot because I just made my first feature film, which is a horror film, and uh in in trying to do it, I realized that I was raised to be a tool. Um, you know, my mother would only compliment me for being humble. Um, you know, get your head out of the clouds. And I and I and I realized that I've always you know, George used to say about Caroline and Carolina changes, is she has the energy to, you know, run a a nation.

[19:18] Robert O Hara: Right. And it's like I feel like, oh, when I was making that film, I was like, oh my God, I was born to do this. Like I can make these five thousand decisions on the moment everything changed. I can do that, and you know, at this point in my life, it's the first time I'm ever doing that. And I have been spending my whole career trying to put that energy into an actor who has such a limited space. And yet my mind was always seeing everything, and then I'm making these people mad because I'm like, no, your play can be this and it can be all of that. And they're like, no, we just want I didn't want my play to be this.

[19:50] Tonya Pinkins: Right. Right, exactly.

[19:51] Robert O Hara: So I don't do meet people anymore. I don't I don't do plays anymore.

[19:54] Tonya Pinkins: Really?

[19:54] Robert O Hara: Right, because I I I'm not able to just be an actor. I see everything. And for me, it's like putting myself into a little box. And I don't want to make someone unhappy because I see so much more that they're they're happy with what they made.

[20:09] Tonya Pinkins: You know, that's interesting because I think that that's also what we experience, those of us who seen your work, uh, experience of you, that there's such a vibration happening, uh, and that uh the uh when uh we see you in a character, there's so much more inside going on with you, which is actually kind of exciting and and thrilling.

[20:27] Robert O Hara: Um but we never take into account like how that must make you feel, you know, uh that you're sort of you know, you have to go through the course of this event uh in a certain lane, right? You know what I mean? And we feel that sort of wanting to burst out, and that's actually kind of uh it's exciting to watch someone who's like gonna rain and try to break the rain, and I'm like, I'm dying, I'm dying, I'm dying here.

[20:50] Tonya Pinkins: Exactly.

[20:51] Robert O Hara: No, and you know, but that's I think is interesting because I walk into rooms all the time, and uh, you know, there's this idea of well, what have you done to be here? You know, uh, and you can sense it because people are just not used to seeing uh this color or this uh uh sexuality or whatever, or this type of humor or what have you. And so, you know, I have learned, um, and I really from George's to sort of like own my own space and like and and everything else has to be, you know.

[21:27] Robert O Hara: There's a certain way that if you hire me, and this is what you're talking about if you hire me, you have to let all of me in the room. You know, is so don't hire me to come in here and pretend to be something that I'm not, or to give you something. If you want this, then you're going to get all of it. I can't leave part of myself outside of the room for your comfort.

[21:47] Robert O Hara: Yeah, it's like uh Charlene Woodard and I we were talking, and she was like, Yeah, I told these people to hire you, and they said, Isn't she difficult? And I sort of like it when people tell me, I heard you were difficult, and they brought me in the room anyway. I'm like, Great, you already know that. So now we can move on ahead.

[22:02] Tonya Pinkins: Right. Okay, let's good.

[22:03] Robert O Hara: That has happened, you know, exactly. I can tell you right now that people I would mention your name's like, well, you know, it's Diane, but I don't care. It's like I can hang with her, you know, you know what I'm saying? It's like I will approach a person as an artist, and you know what I mean, and not as someone that I want to curate your experience in this space.

[22:22] Robert O Hara: Right. You know, we gotta open up a little bit more space for her. You know, right, because I can't fit, you know, it's it's like I get into rehearsals and I, you know, people are doing on day one what I've done when I read the script, I like and I'm just bored. I'm just bored. And any question I'm asking, it's in service of the work. And I, you know, I sort of I teach at NYU and I tell my students, insecurity will make you a star. People like that. They like that they can manipulate you and move you around, and that is something that they will celebrate and elevate because the control is out of your hands.

[23:00] Robert O Hara: Yes. And I am very clear about the work and about what I'm doing. So no, nobody else has control over it. I'm coming in the room to bring something that I know is of worth. Right. And in actors, that is not usually celebrated or valued.

[23:14] Robert O Hara: Yeah. And you know, there has been several actors who will turn to me and go, you know what, I just don't know what I'm doing. And I'm like, I can't help you. What I mean? That's your job to figure out what you're doing. Like you want me to validate. And obviously, I'm not saying you're doing something that doesn't make any type of sense to me, but you every minute of the of the process, you want me to validate. And I'm like, I'm not here to validate you, I'm here to do work.

[23:38] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[23:39] Robert O Hara: That's what I was telling my students today. I was like, you leave school, the teacher's not gonna tell you if that self-tape is good. Exactly. You have to have an internal sense of what works, and you have to look at this thing before you send it out and go, is this a representation of me that if they hire me, I'm gonna be happy doing this thing over and over again.

[23:55] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[23:55] Robert O Hara: Yeah. But I that that is a culture of, you know, uh the sort of, you know, let me remove myself from this space so that I can give this other person the uh the power to say, you know, good, bad, you know, do this, do that, you know. Uh I was talking to uh the SDC uh with uh my intimacy director yesterday, and we were talking about, you know, people that would come up and go, Well, did so and so put that on the stage or did you put that on the stage? And I'm like, um the fact that there is an intimacy director in the space is my direction. You know what I mean? That I don't need to actually have created every moment that you see. The fact that they are in the room with us is a part of my direction.

[24:42] Robert O Hara: You know, did Tanya come up with that? Well, Tanya's in the room because of my direction. You know what I mean? So I'm not threatened by uh what other people put or bring to the space. And I think that some directors are. They believe that every idea and every movement and every thought is supposed to come from them. And if it doesn't, they don't know how to deal with it.

[25:02] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, and that's unfortunate because I feel like many hands make light work in the, you know, George once said that a um a great ensemble is a stage filled with stars, where everybody knows that if you don't take that moment, that person over there is gonna take that moment.

[25:17] Robert O Hara: Exactly. You better be on it because the audience can go and look anywhere and something spectacular is happening because everybody's a star.

[25:23] Tonya Pinkins: Exactly.

[25:24] Robert O Hara: And there's a you know, I was having a conversation with Matt Lowe about that music director, and he was like, You're so interesting every night, and yeah, I need to hire, you know, 12 people who can do the same thing. And it's like, why? Why? Especially musical theater where it's supposed to be these iconic people doing things that no one ever did before because it's just they're one-offs, and it's like, you know, the standardization of art, which can't happen.

[25:49] Robert O Hara: Yeah, like Slave Play. If it goes somewhere else, it's gonna be something else. And and and and as it should be, you know, that I, you know, people are like, well, what's next? I'm like, you know what? Um, I don't have the uh uh uh the time in my uh experience to sort of you know uh manufacture a life after Broadway for Slave Play. Like that's someone else's job, you know, and I believe that, and I'm not one of these people that are sort of following behind these playwrights and hoping that the playwright will let me do their next play or whatever, or making my career on this playwright and doing everything that they're doing.

[26:26] Robert O Hara: I actually, because I am a playwright, I believe that the playwright should have as many people exploring their work as possible and see it in as many ways. I'd love to see uh my plays done by uh a crazy amount of people that sort of like I would never think that you would do it that way. That's very interesting. That's exciting to me as an artist, and not that somehow it has to be what I've done. And I will see plays and I go, well, you know, I don't need to direct that play. You know, they've done it. You know what I mean? There's nothing new that I want to bring to. And I see plays all that, especially being in New York, you see all this really wonderful rich work, and I just feel like, okay, well, I don't need to.

And then, you know, those plays are done over and over, and sometimes they'll call me and I'll be like, I have nothing to contribute to that play. I've already seen it and experienced it, and I don't think I can bring anything differently to it. There are all these other people that can. Uh, so let them do it, actually.

[27:20] Tonya Pinkins: What do you want to do that you haven't gotten to do?

[27:23] Robert O Hara: You know, I I've asked, I've been asked that question, and I really feel like uh I would really love to have um my own sort of troupe. Uh because you know, I don't know of any um African American or black American that has a theatrical troupe. They have dance companies, and you know, and there's collectives, but there is and all over the world. We have all these different, you know, uh Royal Shakespeare, you know, uh Nick Heitner has a company now, uh uh Cheek by Jowl. Uh so we uh all these Europeans have all the uh Evo has, you know, they all have their little company of actors that come and do whatever they uh decide that they want to do. And I would just love to be able to have a cavalcade of people doing work that I want to do and going across the country and the world, actually.

You know, to go to we always are bringing these Europeans over here and putting them into BAM and to St. Anne and whatever. And I don't see us going over there, I don't see us giving our energy and our gifts to the rest of the world in the same way that we allow them to come over and bring their gifts to us.

[28:41] Tonya Pinkins: Why do you think that is?

[28:42] Robert O Hara: Racism. Basically, you know, because I could never go, okay, I want to do Arthur Miller, and in the middle of it, I want to drown the stage and the actors with blood. They were looking like I'm crazy. But they let somebody put rain on me.

[28:57] Tonya Pinkins: Exactly.

[28:57] Robert O Hara: And I'm just like, how is that possible? Like I just feel like we allow white men in particular and white Europeans in particular, a sort of longer leash. And then, you know, I don't get called for Shakespeare. I don't get called for the classics, and I don't get called for, you know, August Wilson even, you know, because there's a sort of you know, gatekeeper quality to it, you know, and they're terrified of what I may do to it. And yet, you know, Evo can come over here and put 900 people behind a camera and dump them in a pool, you know, and they're like, oh, it's brilliant. And that's not against him. Right. That's about what he's being allowed to do. You know, to explore exactly to be a f the full extent of his artistry as he can. You know, and there's a fear, uh, and I think this is not just uh me. I think it's I think uh I don't know many uh American directors that are being offered opportunities such as we offer to white male Europeans.

[29:54] Tonya Pinkins: Yes, oh Sam Gold does actually.

[29:55] Robert O Hara: No, and I think that you know that's based on gender as well and race. Uh but I think there's many more Europeans over here doing stuff than Americans going over there. Yeah, and they get to fail at things. I mean I looked at Fondan Hov. You'll see somebody be like, that didn't work there, but oh exactly in this production, that thing he was working on here. Yes, you know. And I'm like, I've had so much is so many issues with the sort of BAM and like bringing all these people. I'm like, what about actually uh uh holding up our own, you know, here for these international festivals? You know, we're also part of the international community as well. You know, we're always waiting for the next international act at the Lincoln Center Festival and whatever. And I just find like, you know, I wish it worked both ways, actually.

[30:41] Tonya Pinkins: I mean, I think about that a lot because I go to England to see stuff and I and I if do you think it's a capitalism thing that we aren't, you know, the people at the national, they still it's government-funded theater and they have a company that gets paid whether they're in plays or not. America, we don't even have that, we don't even have that at the public theater.

[31:00] Robert O Hara: No.

[31:00] Tonya Pinkins: And I find there's much more diversity on the stage in especially in England.

[31:05] Robert O Hara: Yeah.

[31:06] Tonya Pinkins: But I'll go see play and it was like, wow, they just put anybody that can do the job up there.

[31:12] Robert O Hara: And that's sort of amazing. I think that we're still sort of in that land of like, well, you know, you can uh have this scene where these people are walking down the street and all of a sudden they break out into dancing and singing at the same time, but at least they have to all be white. You know what I mean?

[31:26] Robert O Hara: Right, or even that would be unbelievable. All the families have to be in the same race. Like exactly we can have diversity, but not in the families. Right. And you although we're stopping in the middle of the street and clapping hands and singing a song together that we never heard of, but it would be unbelievable if there was people of color on the same language. That's what I find amazing at times. What we will the extents we will go to to call ourselves diverse or whatever.

[31:50] Tonya Pinkins: This is Tonya Pinkins. Thank you for listening to part one of my interview with Robert O'Hara. Part two is coming up next.