OUTSIDE HER DRESSING ROOM in Lon-
don’s Piccadilly Theatre, the city is frantic
with the bustle of tourists—but Sharon D
Clarke has her mind on Manhattan. The
British singer and actress will soon make
her Broadway debut in Caroline, or Change,
Tony Kushner’s electric musical drama of
race, motherhood, and the politics of who
does your laundry. The production is a West
End transfer for which Clarke, 53, won the
2019 Olivier for Best Actress in a Musi-
cal. But her New York appearance will be
a new landmark in a career dating back to- “I’m a 36-year overnight sensation,”
she says, laughing.
Set in 1960s Lake Charles, Louisiana,
the musical tells the story of Caroline, a
black maid who works for the white, Jew-
ish Gellman family. Caroline—inspired by
Maudie Lee Davis, maid to the Kushner
family when the playwright was a boy—can
be stern and even furious, a woman of color
left without many choices in the Jim Crow
South. Six decades after the era in which the
story is set, the sense of frustration among
black Americans is still powerfully relevant,
Clarke says: “We need stories like this to
hold up the mirror, to ask, ‘How far have
we come? Have we come far?’”
As the only British performer in the new
production, she admits to some concern that
audiences might view her skeptically. She
breaks into a flawless New York accent, high-
ly unimpressed: “‘What you got, babe?’ But
actually—wonderfully—it feels like Ameri-
ca is saying, ‘Bring it, bring it!’” Accompa-
nying her to New
After a long career on stageand screen, Sharon D Clarke has
a breakthrough moment
with Broadway-bound Caroline,
or Change. By Danny Leigh.
Photograph by A nton Corbijn.High
No te
CONTINUED ON PAGE 357
SPEAK NOW
Sharon D Clarke,
photographed here in
a costume by Fly
Davis, stars in Caroline,
or Change. Hair and
makeup, Sonja Mohren;
wig, Emily Grove.
Details, see In This Issue.
Sittings Editor:
Emma Elwick-Bates.