InterviewBlack Lightning’s Chantal Thuy On Making Her Broadway Debut With a Groundbreaking CharacterWhy the CW star splits her time between set and stage for Tracy Letts’ new play Linda Vista.
By
Mark Peikert
September 13, 2019
Chantal Thuy
Storm Santos
The last time Chantal Thuy did Linda Vista, she had just wrapped filming on The CW’s Black Lightning and promptly dyed her hair pink for the rockabilly character. Now, she’s returning to the role on Broadway—and doing double duty as Grace Choi on the Atlanta set of Black Lightning, as well.
Not that she minds the extra work. “I got to go to ClexaCon,” a fan event for LGBTQ+ women, “and got to meet a lot of the younger female fans of Black Lightning. And it was really impactful to see how meaningful these characters are to them,” Thuy says. “It’s really sweet to connect with them.”
Thuy is mindful of that kind of representation, and points to the rarity of what her playwright, Tracey Letts, has done in writing a Vietnamese character into the play, about a middle-aged divorcée’s attempts at creating a new life for himself. (Directed by Dexter Bullard, previews begin at the Helen Hayes Theatre September 19.)
“Tracy is one of the few American writers who’s added a Vietnamese character to one of his plays,” she says. “Going to theatre school, I’m pretty sure I dug in there and there are very few, in terms of non Asian-American playwrights. So that’s pretty great to mark off my bucket list!”
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