Last week, I had the pleasure of attending Slave Play on Broadway and witnessing the genius brainchild of Jeremy O. Harris. This play has the perfect amount of Roots, Couples Retreat, Inception, Black Mirror and 21st century millennial comic relief and satire to morph into a necessary conversation about race, gender & sexuality in 21st century America with details nuances of interracial relationships, self-love, mental health and more. I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Chalia La Tour , who stars as one of two therapists, Téa, in detail about the play, her personal experience as an actress and how the screenplay is groundbreaking in conversations to be had by people of all gender identifications, sexual orientation, racial differences, and mental health history.

Originally from California, Chalia moved to New York after graduating from the Yale School of Drama. With a passion and commitment to daring storytelling some of her works include her reprisal of the role of Teá in the Broadway production of Slave Play (The Golden Theater), The Review or How to Eat Your Opposition (Women's Project Theater), and Cadillac Crew (Yale Repertory Theatre). On screen she has been seen as the ambitious, young lawyer, Yesha Mancini in “The Good Fight” (CBS) and leading the film "The Future is Bright" as the young journalist Karen Green. “The Future is Bright” screened at the inaugural Smithsonian African American Film Festival. Read below the interview between lead writer D’Shonda Brown and Chalia La Tour.

How did you get into acting, and how did you know that this role in Slave Play was for you?

I started acting when I was very young. I come from a family of artists and creatives, who all are focused in music, dance and/or visual arts. So, for me developing my voice and creativity via art was always supported and nourished. I began doing plays at church, in community theatre programs, and all throughout my time in elementary and high school. Later I went on to receive my Bachelors in Technical Design and Acting from Cal State- East Bay and then my MFA in Acting from Yale School of Drama.

My connection to Slave Play started when I was invited to join the first reading of the play while Jeremy was in his first year at Yale. The play focuses a lot on the use of language and how we communicate about the trauma of slavery in our most intimate of relationships (specifically as it intersects with race, gender, and sexuality). While at Yale, I became very involved in conversations between the student body and the administration/faculty to deconstruct long standing issues of white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy that are within academic institutions. So, the role of Teá drew me since she is a character who is working to find answers to heal or overcome generational trauma that are brought on by oppressive systems and in turn trying to heal her own wounds.

When first auditioning for the role of Teá, how did the play initially strike you? The context of the play is very heavy and thought-provoking, but you play an integral role that drives the conversation forward for the other protagonists in the play. What were your first thoughts on the role and the screenplay as a whole?

When I first read the play I was shook, excited, and wanted to keep my hands on this play as long as possible! What was being brought into the light were private conversations, reflections of racial traumas that I have experienced and I have seen those close to me experience. I felt implicated, complicit, and seen all at the same time. For me as an artist that’s what I look for in a project because in that there is something to offer an audience. A space that we can make for conversations that are hard to have alone or in a public setting.

I can say that for me, when I was first introduced to the opening scene of Slave Play, I was also introduced to satire and comic relief with a huge wrath of sexual tension. Then, I was taken aback when I realized there was a greater agenda to the opening scene and, in fact, it was a segway into the larger scope of conversation that included racial justice, trauma, and interracial relationships. How do you believe that sexual activity can be related to - or, rather affected by - childhood and racial trauma?

We are intersectional beings. All of us. Our sexuality, gender identity, race, and all the other qualifiers that make up our identity are who we are. To separate one from the other makes for a very tricky and generalized view of ourselves and the folks around us. To me, this generality or negating of parts of a person’s identity does everyone and conversations around these topics a disservice. So, sexuality and race go hand in hand in any person’s experience whether or not they are conscious of it. And if you are in a sexual relationship with another person, one’s race is involved as well. This dissection of relationships allows for a fuller view of the idiosyncrasies of each person.

Also, in every sexual relationship are power dynamics and power dynamics are within every relationship or interaction that any person has with another person. So, I feel like having a play that visually illustrates in real time the power dynamics of sex between races where dominant or submissive positioning is very clear allows for a greater understanding of the nuance of dissecting the power dynamics outside of sex. It gives the audience an amazing opportunity to see and listen to how these dynamics affect everyone, especially the Black bodies on stage.

Your character Teá is conducting this study of sexuality and racial trauma with her partner - both romantically and academically - Patricia, who is brilliantly portrayed by Irene Sofia Lucio. However, as a Black woman, you're playing the role of a social scientist who is conducting this study of racial trauma in relationships while also having a sort of "Eureka!" moment about her own trauma. How does her character's moment and growth throughout the play relate to you as Chalia?

What I love about Teá’s journey, as a character, is that she is a person in process. She’s taken on the role that so many Black women do which is the helper/guide/caretaker of others while she is still herself in the process of healing and learning. She is desperate for answers and a clear logical way out of the traumas of slavery. Teá is an academic and a type of academic who finds answers, that is her offering to the world. I am a storyteller, I find questions, that’s what I offer the world. So, I can relate because in my work I am creating spaces for the hard questions to live full and open so that people can walk away to have fruitful conversations and introspections around their humanity to lead to their own answers and greater empathy.

I'm a mental health advocate myself and one of my biggest growth spurts has been in the romantic and sexual space. My experience as a rape and sexual assault survivor confirms that trauma had a significant impact on my libido, my ability to trust, promiscuity at some points and then that ultimately rolled into the romantic relationships that I attempted to carryout. Without any spoiler alerts, how do you feel the characters in the play grow to learn about their own sexuality and their personal relationships with their partners?

Without spoiler alerts, I feel like audiences will be able to bare witness to eight (8) characters who are navigating the power dynamics of their race, gender, and sexuality. You will see them discover parts of themselves they would rather not see. Things they wish they didn't have to hear, or have to explain and the history of slavery that they wish they didn't have to hold or refuse to hold equally. You will see characters attempting to get closer together while battling this legacy of trauma that was built to keep us apart.

Photo Credit: Marathon Digital with Joaquin Kalukango as Kaneisha (Seen Left)

I'm not too sure if you know this but data proves that anxiety is proven to be more chronic in Black women and there are far higher rates in Black women, but significantly low rates of treatment. Knowing this, how has your personal experience with mental health allowed you to tap into the play? Furthermore, how do you hope the play will break the stigma of mental health?

I take my mental health and well being very seriously. I am fortunate to have an amazing community of Black women who hold me up to nurturing this part of my self care. With that, I am able to give myself more fully to this play and work in the shadow areas that it calls for. I have a meditation corner in my dressing room, a journal to keep thoughts, professionals and friends I can call or reach out to whenever I need guidance mentally, emotionally or physically.

Our show allows for everyone in the theater to be seen both figuratively and literally. I hope that people walk away with a greater sense of bravery and empathy when it comes to dealing with their own trauma and those of others, specifically regarding racial trauma. I hope this play encourages people to talk. To find places for that pain to speak, rather than bottling it, so a reckoning can take place.

So, shifting gears just a bit, I'm in an interracial relationship myself with an Afro-Latino male and I, myself, as a Black woman have caught myself from time-to-time having those "you don't get it" thoughts, if that makes sense. One time, my boyfriend and I had a heated discussion about my preference of men and, I'm just going to be completely honest here, I told him that I would not want to marry a white man. Not because I dislike them or because I'm racist, but because I want to marry a man who understands my struggle and who empathizes with me on a political, racial, and mental level. Not saying that white men can't do so, but being raised and surrounded by Black men, that's where I am in life right now.

One of your characters tells his partner that he was basically fed up with ambiguity and didn't find it fair that his partner could settle for "white passing," while he wakes up everyday being Black and unable to mask it as effortlessly as his partner does. How do you feel that racial justice - and even so far as "white passing" and colorism - can affect an interracial relationship?

The racial caste system is a visual one, right? With whiteness at the top of the hierarchy and blackness at the bottom of the hierarchy. The closer you are to whiteness, the more privilege a person receives and the greater power to oppress. The closer to blackness, the less privilege you receive and the more vulnerable you are to oppression. So, in a partnership of any kind this societal construct exists. Racial casting is a comparison game and it is one that no one gets to opt out of. Not until the full complete structure can be dismantled. So, to me, there should conversations had within interracial partnerships about the privileges each partner carries and the vulnerabilities they carry.

Before we close out, I want to know if there is anything that you'd like to say to the readers about Slave Play and what they can look forward to when seeing the play. How can they expect to feel? What can they expect to see?

For those coming to see Slave Play, I offer a place where discomfort is allowed, a place where sexuality is seen rather than denied, a place where what’s under the rug or hidden in the laundry is put into full view, and a place where every single one of us (both onstage and off) will reckon with our place in the inheritance of the trauma of slavery in this country. You will be seen and you will see others. Some of these people may feel strange and others you may know very personally. As is in life there will be laughter and there will be pain. Expect to be given questions to lead you to find your own answers.

SEX, LOVE AND SLAVERY: CHALIA LA TOUR GETS CANDID ABOUT SLAVE PLAY ON BROADWAY AND INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIPS