André De Shields, Theatre God
THERE IS PERHAPS NO BETTER WORD FOR ANDRÉ DE SHIELDS than the one his Hadestown costar Eva Noblezada invokes when asked the question: royalty. For more than five decades, this Baltimore native has left his mark onstage as an actor, dancer, singer, teacher, choreographer, and director. As such he’s something akin to the king of the American theatre. The Wiz, if you’re nasty.
With a presence both impish and regal, De Shields gave life to the titular illusionist in that seminal yellow-brick-road musical by Charlie Smalls and William F. Brown; set the stage on figurative fire in the classic revue Ain’t Misbehavin’; and since March, and for the foreseeable future, he stars as an unspeakably dapper Hermes in the Tony-winning Hadestown. In June he took home his own Tony Award for the musical, but not before delivering an instantly iconic speech in which he gave his three rules for “longevity.”
“One: Surround yourself with people whose eyes light up when they see you coming,” he said, dressed in a stylish, black silver-embossed jacket and Hermes-inspired winged gold sneakers (the same ones he wore for this American Theatre photo shoot). “Two: Slowly is the fastest way to get to where you want to be. Three: The top of one mountain is the bottom of the next, so keep climbing.”
To watch André De Shields perform is to see “a five-act play contained in the descent of two steps,” as Rachel Chavkin, who directed him in , puts it. When he arrives for this interview, wearing a dark blue tracksuit with bright orange stripes, his salt-and-pepper hair shining like a crown, he is unassuming yet calculating. He measures out the room with one glance, slinks into his chair effortlessly, and assumes the position of someone poised to enlighten you on all the secrets of the universe. The
