Soraya Nadia McDonald
Andscape
Washington, DC, United States
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Past articles by Soraya:
What’s in a Black name? 400 years of context.
Changing one’s name might be one of the most American things a Black person can do, emblematic of one of the country’s most enduring, if elusive, promises: that… → Read More
In ‘Passing,’ the steep cost of crossing the color line
Passing is not just the title of a 1929 novella and a new film streaming on Netflix, but a once-common practice that served as a method of survival in a country… → Read More
Broadway needs big structural change. The producers behind The Theatre Leadership Project are hoping to deliver it.
A new group is aiming to make a sea change on Broadway by vaulting Black people into some of its most powerful positions. Broadway producers Barbara Brocc… → Read More
Black female artists discuss Harry, Meghan and interracial relationships
Is there anything more seductive or ultimately disappointing than a fairy tale? It’s been nearly two weeks since the interview of the decade, Meghan Markle and … → Read More
Adrienne Warren and Katori Hall of Broadway’s ‘Tina’ don’t know when theater will return, but they’re working to make it better
After a global pandemic made for the most calamitous year in the history of American theater, actor Adrienne Warren and playwright Katori Hall are among the man… → Read More
Billie Holiday deserves better
Before the tragedies of Britney Spears or Whitney Houston, there was Billie Holiday. There’s a cruel blueprint to the way American society treats many of its mo… → Read More
Who’s afraid of ‘Malcolm & Marie’? Certainly not Edward Albee.
If anything is clear about Malcolm & Marie, the new film starring Zendaya and John David Washington, it’s this: Writer-director Sam Levinson is no Shakespea… → Read More
‘MLK/FBI’ looks at J. Edgar Hoover’s crusade to undermine Martin Luther King Jr.
In 2027, the National Archives will finally release the many hours of audio the FBI surreptitiously recorded when its director, J. Edgar Hoover, sought to destr… → Read More
The dangerous magical thinking of ‘this is not who we are’
Since the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, there have been statements from white people across the political spectrum, including President-elect Joe… → Read More
A COVID-19 vaccine is here, but theaters seek a New Deal
For most of 2020, the artistic director of Baltimore Center Stage has been thinking about the future in six-week chunks. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the en… → Read More
It’s been a year of big change for Blackness in animation
This Christmas, Pixar Animation Studios will release Soul, its first feature film starring a Black character. Jamie Foxx voices Joe, a band teacher and pianist … → Read More
In ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ the New Negro and the Old collide
Gertrude “Ma” Rainey rolls into a steamy 1927 Chicago summer with a chip on her shoulder and a fur stole on her neck, both of which are instrumental to fully un… → Read More
Our 25 can’t-miss books of 2020
This list is, in part, an acknowledgement of the way 2020 wrecked our attention spans with its nonstop ghastliness. As such, it’s filled with selections that pe… → Read More
HBO’s adaptation of ‘Between the World and Me’ is sadly still timely
In July 2015, Random House rushed to release Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ epistolary book written to his then-15-year-old son, Samori, as America… → Read More
‘The Good Lord Bird’ episode six: ‘Jesus is Walkin’
Well, Mister Fred was right. John Brown’s plan to take over the Harpers Ferry armory was indeed cockamamie and full of errors, forced and unforced. In Jesus is … → Read More
What the Constitution means to us
The U.S. Constitution is a mess. Important, revolutionary, bursting with good intentions — but still a mess. It is a fallible document, created, interpreted and… → Read More
‘The Good Lord Bird’ episode three: ‘Mister Fred’
You would think, in a show that features a lead character who earnestly converses with rabbits and turtles — as John Brown does in The Good Lord Bird — that the… → Read More
Director Garrett Bradley shows the bleak heart of the prison system in ‘Time’
I’ve watched more films than I can count that center around the cruelties of America’s racist criminal justice system. I’ve never seen one like Time. Directed b… → Read More
Radha Blank relearns how to live in color in ‘The Forty-Year-Old Version’
Everything about Radha, the star character of The Forty-Year-Old Version, suggests that she should have her life figured out. She’s got her own apartment and a … → Read More
‘The Good Lord Bird’ tells the magnificent tale of a founding father: John Brown
As the country continues its ongoing reckoning over race and white supremacy, white people, in overwhelming numbers, have sought out books to aid in their educa… → Read More