Written in 1955 by the African American playwright, Alice Childress, Trouble in Mind was an Off-Broadway theater hit that never got a ticket to Broadway because of its controversial subject matter. Some 66 years later, the play is finally making its Broadway debut.

The grand ensemble cast is led by a spot-on LaChanze as the esteemed, seasoned actor Wiletta Mayer joined by the elder statesman Sheldon Foresster (Chuck Cooper) who's just about seen it all; a brash Millie Davis (Jessica Frances Dukes); the white, privileged ingenue Judy Sears (Danielle Campbell); her counterpart, the young, idealistic John Nevins (Brandon Michael Hall); an actor of vaudevillian proportions Bill O'Wray (Don Stephenson); the backstage theater staple Henry (Simon Jones) and the challenging, myopic, self-described progressive director, Al Manners (Michael Zegen).

One by one, the actors arrive on a spare stage to rehearse a play based on a lynching. LaChanze appears in a marvelous tailored dress and jacket (by Emilio Sosa) and inhales mixed memories of a life in the theater. All the experienced black actors are grateful to have a job, yet frustrated with the assigned roles and expectations. 

When the young, optimistic John proudly announces his dramatic training and Off-Broadway credits, LaChanze insists he smiles when the white director arrives and pretend he was a child in the last production of "Porgy and Bess."  That cringy exchange is crammed with generational inequities experienced by non-white people, let alone actors.

Despite the fact that he believes he's directing a groundbreaking work, Manners' in-bred, stereotypical assumptions flatten the souls of actors. Longing to play a three-dimensional woman worn by concern over her son's future, her suggestion are met by Manners' insistence on outsized expressions--wide eyed amazement/horror and wild gesticulations. 

When LaChanze continues to challenges the portrayal of a mother actually willing to give up her son to a lynch mob, Sheldon explodes the charade and recounts, in chilling detail, his horrifying memory witnessing a lynching. 

Despite this reality by baptism, Manners plunges forward because, afterall, the question is less about the truth and more about the limits of white America's acceptance of a fully integrated America.

A collegial group of professionals constantly jostling for favor, all the characters find their voices at one point or another. A delicious competition between LaChanze and Mayer wring out the majority of the laughs. Immensely likable, both the young buck John and old-school Sheldon represent the past the and future while the misguided director points to changes still in the making.

Director Charles Randolp-Wright engineers a complicated scenario of racial politics and biting humor. 
EYE ON THE ARTS, NY -- Celia Ipiotis
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