New Play Defies Black Stereotypes

Playwright Tanya Barfield’s new drama Blue Door follows a black mathematician as he weathers the tension between his middle-class desires and a past of racist oppression. Barfield said she wanted the play to counter common portrayals of blacks in film and theater. “I began writing out of frustration over the predominant stereotypes of African-Americans in the entertainment industry: endless depictions of ghetto culture,” she wrote in an essay on the play. Performances will continue at Playwrights Horizons’ Peter Jay Sharp Theater through Oct. 29.—Mike McPhate