Speaking to an audience at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, Adjoa Andoh said that some of her work might seem “Black or colour-centric,” but that’s only because of the boxes the world puts us in. She added that she could just as easily be focused on Leeds United football club.
“I’m missing two important matches to be here with you this week,” the 63-year-old said, making the audience laugh. “I have tickets!”
Any football fan would understand. Andoh, a Shakespearean actor, director, and star of the Netflix series Bridgerton, made the tough choice to skip an FA Cup semi-final to take part in a new director’s residency at the Folger. This Shakespearean landmark, with scenes from the plays carved in marble, has been on Capitol Hill since 1932.
Her week included exploring the Folger’s collection, public events like last Sunday’s lecture (which smoothly connected the Gospel of Luke, the transatlantic slave trade, punk rock, and the Artemis II moon mission), visits to Washington schools, and a screening of her 2019 production of Richard II at Shakespeare’s Globe in London.
The week ended with a staged reading to mark the 90th anniversary of the Federal Theatre Project’s production of Macbeth. This was one of the first US shows with an all-Black cast, directed by a young Orson Welles. Funded by President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal to help lift America out of the Great Depression, the original show was a success and gave vital jobs to unemployed artists.
The residency also included an interview with the Guardian in one of the Folger’s fancy, wood-paneled rooms, a couple of days before Shakespeare’s birthday. “I had a bit of a cry yesterday,” she admits, thinking about seeing the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s First Folios and touring the vaults. “There’s something fantastically, energetically interesting about the Folger being where it’s placed,” in the nation’s capital, she says.
Politics were central to her Richard II at the Globe. It explored what Shakespeare’s love letter to England could reveal about a time of “violent national paroxysms” after the Brexit vote to leave the European Union. The poster showed Andoh, a shaven-headed Black woman, in front of the flag of St George. She came up with the idea, co-directed, and starred in the first all-women-of-colour version of the play in Britain.
It was a clear statement that there is no lack of talent, only a lack of imagination among those who hire and fire in the industry. “We all cried because it was like, I don’t have to be the only one in the room,” she recalls. “Imagine that all the work you’ve ever done as a journalist, you’ve always been in newsrooms with writers of colour every day, or you’ve been in newsrooms where you’re the only man. You have to think of yourself in a slightly different way, because you can’t just go in and be a journalist.
“You have to think, ‘Oh, am I being too blokey?’ Just stuff you don’t need in your head. So I wanted us to have the chance to not have that in our heads. We could just go and be, and be a great stage manager, or a great assistant director, or voice coach, or actor, or composer, or whatever you were doing. And also know that you were working on a project where your excellence, your stagecraft, your comedy, your line delivery, your design would absolutely be scrutinised, but there would be a whole group of you, and you were all working to be great.”
But the politics of identity-conscious casting have never been more complicated. In 2023, Andoh directed and starredAdjoa Andoh played Richard III at the Liverpool Playhouse and the Rose Theatre Kingston without much controversy. But a year later, Michelle Terry, the artistic director of the Globe, faced strong criticism when it was announced she would play the role. Actors and disability groups objected, arguing that the part of the “deformed, unfinished” king should go to a disabled actor.
What does Andoh think? “Richard III is a character Shakespeare originally imagined with a physical disability, and that disability is linked to all sorts of malicious traits. If you put someone down for something they can’t help, what happens when they fight back? In our production, we simply said that the thing singled out—the quality people attach bad intentions to—would be race instead of a curved spine.
“Keep everything else the same. Don’t change the language. Just make that person the only one with that physical difference from the rest of the cast. Interestingly, in our production, the actress playing my mother is deaf and has limited sight. We had an actor with a differently abled body, and another who was hard of hearing. But that wasn’t the story I was telling. They were just great actors, so I wanted them in the show.”
Another current debate is whether LGBTQ+ characters should only be played by LGBTQ+ actors. Andoh continues: “The point is that for a long time, gay characters weren’t played by gay actors. It might feel like a push toward something stricter, but really it’s just an effort to rebalance things. From there, everyone should be able to do whatever they’re talented at. But I do understand that need for rebalancing.”
That rebalancing is clear in Bridgerton, the Netflix hit set in Regency-era London with a more racially diverse cast than you’d have seen in a similar show a generation ago. Andoh plays Lady Danbury, a sharp-witted feminist matriarch.
As a history lover and the daughter of a retired history teacher, she says, “I always felt sad that there were historical dramas, and I wouldn’t necessarily get a part in them. It’s great to do classical theatre, but that wasn’t translating into modern historical dramas. What Bridgerton has done is change the casting culture.”
While Bridgerton is fictional, it’s actually based on histories that were “hidden in plain sight,” she adds. Andoh gives the example of Dorothy Thomas, an enslaved woman who bought her own freedom and that of 20 family members. She later petitioned parliament over unfair taxation and had an affair with Prince William, the future King William IV.
“There’s no judgment on it. It’s just information. We need to know all of history so we’re not shocked by the parts we thought weren’t real, and so we don’t feel like, ‘Oh, it’s the woke brigade hitting us with their blah blah blah.'”
But a “war on woke” is happening on both sides of the Atlantic. Donald Trump’s election in 2024 signaled a step backward. The US president has removed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs from the federal government and pressured companies and museums to do the same. The Black Lives Matter Plaza outside the White House has been torn up and erased. Trump continues to attack transgender rights at every chance.
Andoh says: “DEI has been rolled back in many areas of the state, as well as in the corporate world and elsewhere. While we’re wringing our hands about Jeffrey Epstein—as we should be—there are areas where DEI would have supported women in the workplace, and maybe they’re not getting that support anymore.
“If you live in a world with winners and losers, and if you’re a winner, you might not want to change the system. But if you’re a loser, you want to change it. That’s the tension we’re living through.”You’re asking for equality, which means asking the winners to be less dominant, and that’s going to upset some people. They’ll struggle with it. Everyone wants an easier life, so if there’s a chance to lighten their load, they’ll take it.
Andoh is the co-director of the production company Swinging the Lens, which aims to uncover overlooked histories and present familiar stories from fresh, inclusive angles. Her sharp awareness of the “silo of race”—what she calls a frustrating “accident of my birth”—is deeply rooted in her childhood.
Born to a white British mother and a Ghanaian father, she grew up in Leeds before her father moved the family to a small village in the rural Cotswolds in the late 1960s.
[Image: Adjoa Andoh and Liz Kettle in Richard III. Photograph: Manuel Harlan]
Life in Wickwar, Gloucestershire, was like living in the pages of Cider With Rosie, Andoh recalls—self-sufficient, quiet, and deeply communal. Her father served on the parish council and played in local folk bands, but for a mixed-race girl with a thick Leeds accent, it took resilience. “You had to be tough out there,” she says, adding that she survived by being “biffy” and making people laugh.
Salvation, and a vision of a future she hadn’t dared to imagine, came on a wet, midweek afternoon in 1979. At 16, dealing with anorexia and the painful aftermath of her parents’ divorce, Andoh attended a Bristol Old Vic matinee of David Hare’s Plenty, starring Kate Nelligan.
Watching Nelligan play a former French resistance fighter suffocating in postwar London, Andoh sat in the dark and sobbed. In a lecture last Sunday, she recalled: “There was magic happening in that theatre—a conversation between the writer, the actor, and me that transported and transformed me. I came to understand that perhaps the theatre was where I could use my gift, be myself, and lose myself in other characters.
“Kate Nelligan’s performance that wet midweek afternoon matinee set the course of my life and lifted me out of my deep sadness. When I teach drama students, I often ask them to think about the transformative power of their gift. Never phone it in. Take their playing seriously, because they might never know which wet midweek afternoon a soul in need might sit in front of them, in the dark, longing to connect.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs about Adjoa Andohs perspectives on Shakespeare Bridgerton and DEI based on her quote I dont have to be the only one in the room
BeginnerLevel Questions
1 Who is Adjoa Andoh
Adjoa Andoh is a British actress and director You probably know her as Lady Danbury from Bridgerton but shes also a renowned Shakespearean performer
2 What does she mean by I dont have to be the only one in the room
She means that in her early career she was often the only Black person on set or in a theater cast Now shes happy to see more diversity so shes no longer alone Its about belonging not just being a token
3 How is Bridgerton connected to DEI
Bridgerton intentionally casts actors of color in historically white roles This is a form of colorconscious casting which is a key DEI practice
4 What is colorconscious casting
Its the opposite of colorblind casting Instead of ignoring race it actively and thoughtfully includes actors of color often reimagining the story or world to reflect a more diverse society
5 Why does Adjoa Andoh talk about Shakespeare and DEI together
She argues that Shakespeares themespower love race and justiceare universal She believes that diverse casts make these stories feel fresh and relevant for modern audiences not just for a white elite
Intermediate Advanced Questions
6 What specific challenges did Adjoa Andoh face early in her career as a Black Shakespearean actress
She often faced typecasting or was the only person of color in a company She felt she had to work twice as hard to prove she could handle classical text and she was often isolated
7 How does Adjoa Andohs approach to DEI differ from tokenism
Tokenism is when one person is included just to look diverse Andoh advocates for critical masshaving enough diverse people in a
