TROUBLE IN MIND Review by Celia Ipiotis

                      

                        LaChanze in Roundabout Theatre Company's Trouble in Mind. Photo by Joan Marcus


You're not paid to think!" Sadly, that admonition is heard by many actors. The idea that someone else controls all your decisions is galling and in the newly revived drama "Trouble in Mind" it's downright maddening.

Written in 1955 by the African American playwright, Alice Childress, Trouble in Mind was an Off-Broadway theater hit but never got a ticket to Broadway because of the controversial subject matter. Some 66 years later, the play finally landed on Broadway.

The grand ensemble cast is led by a spot-on LaChanze as the esteemed, seasoned actor Wiletta Mayer along with the elder statesman Sheldon Foresster (Chuck Cooper) who's just about seen it all; a brash Millie Davis (Jessica Frances Dukes); the white, privileged ingenue Judy Sears (Danielle Campbell); her counterpart, the young, idealistic John Nevins (Brandon Michael Hall); an actor of vaudevillian proportions Bill O'Wray (Don Stephenson); the backstage theater staple Henry (Simon Jones) and the challenging, myopic, self-appointed progressive, white director, Al Manners (Michael Zegen). Read more..




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