PURLIE VICTORIOUS Profiled on 'THEATER: All The Moving Parts', on CUNY TV

In this new episode of “THEATER: All the Moving Parts," the cast of “Purlie Victorious” and theater experts discuss the hilarious and clever machinations in the acclaimed Broadway revival of Ossie Davis's 1961 comedy. 

Host Patrick Pacheco is first joined by cast members Kara Young, Jay O. Sanders, and Heather Alicia Simms, who talk about their provocative roles in this sly and subversive comedy in which white supremacy meets its worst nightmare.

Then critic Brittani Samuel and CUNY Professor Hillary Miller place Davis's groundbreaking drama within the context of Broadway history and Civil Rights activism.   This episode premieres Friday, December 22 at 8:30PM and on YouTube at https://bit.ly/36hhnIu.

Says Pacheco, “Like most people, I was familiar with the 1970 musical, ‘Purlie,' but was not aware of the 1961 play from which it was adapted. The producers and director Kenny Leon have now done a great service by bringing together this topnotch group of actors, all of whom breathed new life into the groundbreaking comedy.  I had a laugh-out-loud good time with Kara, Jay and Heather, especially when I asked them, apropos of a moment in “Purlie Victorious,”  ‘How do Blacks talk about whites when they're not around?' You'll love the answer.” 

“THEATER: All the Moving Parts” is an hour-long CUNY TV show, featuring in-depth interviews with artists from every theatrical discipline. Premiering in March of 2019 with playwright Theresa Rebeck, the show has consistently garnered thousands of views deconstructing such wildly different shows as “& Juliet”, with its pre-existing hit pop catalogue, the immersive “The Jungle” at St. Ann's Warehouse,  the epic drama, “Leopoldstadt,” and a moving tribute to Stephen Sondheim.

Rebeck recently returned to the show in an episode also featuring Charles Busch, another fan favorite. Said Rebeck of “Theater, All the Moving Parts”:  “I felt like I was being interviewed by someone who knows me better than I know myself.” Go to https://bit.ly/36hhnIu to see these and other episodes.

Patrick Pacheco is an Emmy-winning commentator and journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, THE WALL Street Journal, Esquire.com, and many other periodicals. He wrote the 2009 Disney documentary “Waking Sleeping Beauty,” and is the co-writer, with Maria Cassi, of the play, “My Life with Men…and other animals.” 

He is the writer and editor of the Amazon best seller “American Theatre Wing, An Oral History: 100 Years, 100 Voices, 100 Million Miracles” and the co-writer with Chita Rivera of “Chita, A Memoir”, published by HarperOne. He has also co-written with Erik Jackson, the new musical “Christmas in Connecticut” which premiered in November 2022 at Connecticut's Goodspeed Opera House and was presented at the Pioneer Theatre in Salt Lake City, Utah this holiday season. 

Jay O. Sanders (Ol' Cap'n Cotchipee). Theatre: Primary Trust (Roundabout), Girl From the North Country (Broadway), Richard Nelson's acclaimed 12-play Rhinebeck Panorama (The Public, Hunter, Zoom, European & world tours; various ensemble awards), Cyrano de Bergerac (Guthrie), Uncle Vanya (Old Globe, Hunter; Drama Desk Award), King Lear, (Delacorte).

Heather Alicia Simms (Missy Judson). Broadway: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, A Raisin in the Sun, Gem of the Ocean, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Off-Broadway: Des Moines; Fairview; Fabulation; By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (Obie Award); Richard III; Barbecue; born bad. 

Kara Young (Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins). Broadway: Cost of Living (Tony nomination), Clyde's (Tony, Drama Desk nominations), Off-Broadway: Twelfth Night (Obie Award), All the Natalie Portmans (Lucille Lortel nomination), Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven, The New Englanders, Revolving Cycles Truly and Steadily Roll'd, Syncing Ink and Pretty Hunger. 

Hillary Miller teaches twentieth and twenty-first century dramatic literature and performance in the English Department at Queens College, CUNY and is affiliate faculty in Theatre & Performance at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She has published on numerous topics related to theatre post-World War II in the United States, including performance and urban space; racial, ethnic, and geographic inequalities in the arts; activist theatre traditions; and the politics of producing.

Brittani Samuel (she/her) is a Caribbean-American arts journalist, theatre critic, and the co-editor of 3Views on Theater. Her work has appeared in American Theatre Magazine, Broadway News, The New York Times, and several other places on the Internet. She is an alum of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Critics Institute, as well as the inaugural recipient of ATCA's Edward Medina Prize for Excellence in Cultural Criticism. To read more of her published work, visit BrittaniSamuel.com.

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