Washington, Pasquale & More Celebrate Opening Night of AMERICAN SON!

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. Kerry Washington has returned to

Broadway alongside Steven Pasquale, Jeremy Jordan and Eugene Lee in Christopher Demos Brown's riveting new play, American Son, directed by Kenny Leon

And I caught up with all of them on opening night. You know, I just feel so lucky to be part of a production that is about something

You know, I mean we are doing this show and at the end of the night or the

afternoon it feels like people's hearts are cracked open a little bit and they They want to talk. They want to talk about who they are

They want to talk about parenting and race and love and identity and policing and politics and all of it

So I'm just grateful to be a part of something that's inspiring people to have really necessary conversations right now

The stakes and energy of your character are so high when it starts throughout the entire play

What is it like to play as an actress? It's stressful. It's very stressful

So I try to do a lot of things in between shows to help my nervous system and keep my adrenals in the right place and just really try to take care of my wellness, you know, because it is a very stressful world that Kendra is living in

And I want to give that my all. So I have to make sure when I'm not being Kendra that I'm really taking care of Ken Carey

Scott is sort of an old fashioned, slightly conservative. He feels like he's got maybe the market share on what's right and wrong

He's an FBI agent in southern Florida. He's a taskmaster. He got a military background But puts his family first loves his wife and his child you know immeasurably And you And the divide that this couple can seem to cross in this play is really what the evening is about

And it's a really beautiful and hard conversation. Working with this company, the four of you up there are the perfect ensemble

What was it like being in the rehearsal room with Kenny and finding this play together

Really meaningful to me. Christopher Demos Brown, he's never had a play on Broadway

He's a full-time practicing prosecutor and attorney in Southern Florida. He writes at night

And so he came up here to see his Broadway debut from his full-time gig in Miami

It just feels really special for us to be able to be that for him. I mean, the play is just really good and smart, and so we all wanted to get it right for Chris

Well, Officer Larkin is a really tricky character because he has to ride that sort of line between sort of

well, two lines, the line between, you know, dramatic and humor. And then also the line between like

is this guy really kind of a bad racist dude? Or is he just kind of ignorant and like really trying to help

And so you want to try to stay on the top of those lines. You want to stay more dramatic and say more of that kind of guy trying to help

because otherwise you can fall into these really strange traps of the character that sometimes, you know, early on in the performance

people are like laughing, laughing. I was like, I'm not trying to be that funny, but because, you know, it's a very..

He's a character that I think is... that a lot of people can see in themselves at moments

You know that sort of like oh I hadn realized that I had just said something or I hadn realized that I had unintentionally you know been this way or spoke this way or acted this way towards people

He's really sort of embodiment of that in our show. While at the same time, like, you want to have sympathy for the character because he really is just trying to do his job and work for his family

And, you know, it's like I said, it's that line because you want to like him, but then you just can't

and then, you know, it's a real fun challenge to do. This play speaks the truth from 360 degrees around this particular issue

and if there's two things that I like to do with my work, I want to tell the truth and I want to be clear

Clarity and truth, when I can do that, and when a play does that, that tells me that play is special

This is the kind of play that changes things, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Talk about the role that you play

Who is Lieutenant Stokes? What can you tell us? He's strictly by the book, you know, been doing this for a long time kind of guy

and no nonsense. And I think that's who he is in a nutshell

Yeah. What I love about this play is you hear all different sides

It's so riveting to watch. What's it like playing with your other actors on stage in this show

Oh, it's rich, man. It's what every actor wants. We go into this together and we sing this song together

and tell this wonderful story every night together. And that's just a joy to do

And it doesn't get any better than this. I can finally say welcome to Broadway

How does it feel? Yes, it feels awesome. Say that again. Welcome to Broadway, how does it feel

It feels pretty fantastic. It gotta be so incredible What a way to return I mean to come here with this incredible company of actors led by Kenny Leon Yeah it kind of like a dream come true And in addition to being all

fabulous, well-known, talented people, they're all also really delightful people to work with

So I kind of, I kind of hit it out of the park, I guess, and got super lucky

How did you come about to write this? There's so much to this story, to the characters you've written. There's so many sides

Well, I sort of drew on a lot of life experience, did some research with friends who I know

two women who are African-American and married to white men who I interviewed extensively

I worked as a prosecutor, so I worked with police for a long time and interviewed some police

And then I kind of usually when I build a character, I borrow consciously or unconsciously from people I know

So that's more or less, I guess, how these characters came about. Well, I think this play is great because it happens in real time

You know, it's like 80 minutes, and I want the audience to feel what the actors on stage are feeling

what the characters are feeling, and to see that marriage between audience night after night with the artist

It's just what great theater is made of. And the excitement of working on a brand-new Broadway play

with this incredible playwright next to you. Oh, working on a new American Broadway play

is nothing better. Nothing better. And Chris Demos Brown, he is a beast to be reckoned with

So I hope he gets an opportunity to bring his next two or three plays to Broadway