By Jamila Bey, Washington Informer
Phylicia Rashad became a two-time Tony Award winner for her performance as Faye in Dominique Morisseau’s Skeleton Crew. Portraying a worker at an auto plant about to go bankrupt, Rashad’s vulnerable yet tough Faye is a lesbian who is haunted by the estrangement of her son, the addictions she suffers and the weight of being Black in America. Rashad earned this year’s Best Featured Actress in a Play award.
Dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University since May 2021, the 73-year old Rashad beat out fellow nominees Uzo Aduba and Kara Young in the Lynn Nottage-penned, Clyde’s, Kenita R. Miller for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, SNL alum, Rachel Dratch, and Julie White for POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive. Rashad was directed in Skeleton Crew by Tony Award winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson.
“You don’t come to this place alone.” Rashad told the audience as she began her acceptance speech. “It’s wonderful to be a part of this community. It’s wonderful to present humanity in its fullness and to feel it received.” Rashad was directed in Skeleton Crew by Tony Award winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson.
A 2016 inductee to the Theatre Hall of Fame, Dean Rashad received Tony and Drama Desk Awards for her performance as Lena Younger in the 2004 revival of A Raisin in the Sun, and a Tony nomination for her portrayal of Aunt Ester in August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean.