By The Way, Meet Vera Stark

Tony Award nominee and NCAAP Image Award winner Sanaa Lathan will play the title role of Vera Stark in Lynn Nottage‘s new play, ‘By the Way, Meet Vera Stark.’

This world-premiere comedy will also feature the previously announced Stephanie J. Block, Daniel Breaker, Kimberly Hebert Gregory, Kevin Isola and Tony Award-winner Karen Olivo.

Directed by Jo Bonney, ‘By the Way, Meet Vera Stark’ is Nottage’s first play to be produced in New York since she won the Pulitzer Prize for ‘Ruined’ in 2009.

The comedy draws upon the screwball films of the 1930s to take a funny and irreverent look at racial stereotypes in Hollywood.

‘By the Way, Meet Vera Stark’ is a 70-year journey through the life of Vera Stark, a headstrong African American maid and budding actress, and her tangled relationship with her boss, a white Hollywood star (Stephanie J. Block) desperately grasping to hold on to her career. When circumstances collide and both women land roles in the same Southern epic, the story behind the cameras leaves Vera with a surprising and controversial legacy scholars will debate for years to come.

The production will begin preview performances on April 6 and officially open on May 9 at Second Stage Theater (305 West 43rd Street).

Behind the scenes of By The Way, Meet Vera Stark: The making of “The Belle Of New Orleans.”

The following is a short documentary, “A Leading Lady in a Maid’s Uniform: A Closer Look at The Belle of New Orleans“, probes Vera’s end by examining her beginning; her first, and perhaps most famous, film role as Tilly the maid in The Belle of New Orleans.

Sanaa Lathan Talks ‘Meet Vera Stark’