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Theyve always done the play in the summer, she points out, and always during the NBA Finals.
So were right in the pocket, she says.
This project always attracts what it needs and always gives us just enough time to do it.
Oh, does it!
interjects Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu,Pass Overs playwright and producer, looking up from her Sweetgreen salad.
They have a whole lot to do this time around.
After all, Nwandu is changing the plays ending.
I just want everyones humanity to take up more time, Nwandu tells the cast and crew.
Playwrights often hone their scripts when their shows move to midtown.
Its rarer to revise with an eye to the current historical moment.
Her revisions arent the only result of last years upheaval.
But Nwandu is also responding to a transformation in her personal life.
This spring, her marriage ended.
Im hopeful, but … Nwandu says of the last, then laughs.
Im also a Black woman in America.
Then I remember having this really shitty thought, she says.
Its a terrible, existential feeling.
If they were Black, these characters wouldnt be old.
She realized the Exodus-inspired play she was working on could respond to this too.
This is a white, possibly Jewish, audience.
They didnt vote for Trump, Nwandu says.
That ending pokes these people in the ribs.
The discussions about bringingPass Overto Broadway began in February 2020.
She compares it to a New Testament version of the script, where divine redemption is hard-won but possible.
I had an energetic change, she says.
Out with the old, in with the new.
That feeling reverberated outward.
(New Yorkmagazine was unable to reach Schmidt for comment before publication.
And Im like,Fuck that heteronormative box.Im bicurious.
Im going to be a single mom.
Like Angelina Jolie when she had just adopted Maddox she laughs I want to be like that.
But, you know, my version of that.
Once the production began to ready plans for Broadway, Nwandu knew she had to change the ending.
Taymor tells me her first response to Nwandus plan was Absolutely.
I always say Antoinette has the prophecies, the director says.
She can see the things we dont see yet.
Nwandu is also hoping to change who those audiences are.
If your town is infested with MAGA people, she says, then yes, like producePass Over2017.
When I come backto rehearsal on July 15, the company is hard at work in search of exuberance.
I dont like all this sweat and vulnerability, she says.
Theyre trying to pull their fields of reference together.
Were aware of our racial and class backgrounds, Nwandu says.
The constant communication is a mind meld and a check-in: Are you saying what Im saying?
Thats joy for me, he says.
I do didactic work, Nwandu says.
Im going to give you something to think about.
This is unlikely to happen andPass Overhas enough health-and-safety concerns already but Nwandus intention is serious.
Our relationship to the world needs to be healed, she says.
This story has been updated to include a statement from Graham Schmidt.
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