EVENTUALLY, EVERYTHING
COMES OUT IN THE WASH
Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre has found a new home, relocating from the Lower East Side to the Upper West Side’s WP Theater. Their second offering, The Wash by Kelundra Smith, opened tonight—an earnest, history-minded drama recounting the overlooked 1881 labor strike by Black laundresses in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s a powerful story of collective action, interracial solidarity, and dignity in the face of erasure.
Bianca Laverne Jones, Kerry Warren, Eunice Woods, Alicia Pilgrim, Margaret Odette
Margaret Odette
Faced with grueling hours and exploitative wages—sometimes earning as little as 40 cents a week—these women organized a labor strike that demanded $1 per dozen pounds of laundry. Smith’s fictionalized telling centers on a small group of black women, led by the resolute Anna (Eunice Woods), a compelling portrait of a hardworking woman, along with the equally captivating Charity (Alicia Pilgrim), Jewel (Kerry Warren), Thomasine (Margaret Odette), and the comical Jeanie (Bianca Laverne Jones). In Act II, a white laundress, Mozelle (Rebecca Haden), joins the cause—an emblem of the racial solidarity that made the strike so exceptional; with the help of the neighboring towns and areas, they quickly grew from a few dozen to over 3,000 strikers, a staggering number for the era.
Kerry Warren
The subject matter is stirring and undeniably important. Where The Wash falls short is in the telling. The play begins slowly, with scenes heavy on inconsequential chatter. The dramatic stakes don’t surface until we learn that many of the white clients are behind with their payments and refusing to pay. When Anna begins calling on homes to collect, sound designer Bill Toles completes the conflict with doors slamming in her face. At the end of Act I, Anna rallies her peers to strike—a moment that felt like it had finally arrived. Perhaps because the play is preaching to the choir, I felt like I was waiting for it to catch up to my own expectations. And when the strike ends successfully, I missed the climatic exuberance, which could be both a writing and directing issue.
Eunice Woods
Bianca Laverne Jones, Margaret Odette, Kerry Warren, Alicia Pilgrim
Director Awoye Timpo draws strong, grounded performances from the entire ensemble. That cohesion among the actors gives the production its emotional heft. Still, the staging tends toward the functional, rarely elevating the storytelling or deepening the text. The most creative, inventive moments arrive at the top of Act II with the expressive choreography by Adesola Osakalumi and Jill M. Vallery that infuses the production with a much-needed jolt of poetry and movement. One wishes more of their artistry could’ve been incorporated at the top of Act I and throughout the many scene changes.
Rebecca Haden
Jason Ardizzone-West’s scenic design, featuring two rotating set pieces for shifting interiors, is simple and effective. Toles’ sound cues contribute important texture. Victor En Yu Tan’s lighting and Gail Cooper-Hecht’s period costumes round out the visual world with competence and care.
Bianca Laverne Jones, Alicia Pilgrim, Kerry Warren, Rebecca Haden
Alicia Pilgrim
Ultimately, The Wash is more notable for its historical excavation than its dramatic structure. That’s not nothing—it’s quite a lot. For that reason alone, the two-hour and fifteen-minute play is worth seeing. It shines a light on a largely forgotten chapter of American labor history and observes the strength, intelligence, and resilience of Black working-class women whose contributions shaped the future.
photos by Hollis King
The Wash
New Federal Theatre
WP Theater, 2162 Broadway at 76th
2 hours, 15 minutes with intermission
Tue, Thurs, Fri at 7; Sat at 2 & 7; Sun at 3
ends on June 29, 2025
for tickets ($30-$45), visit NFT
Gregory Fletcher is an author, a theater professor, a playwright, director, and stage manager. His craft book on playwriting is entitled Shorts and Briefs, and publishing credits include two YA novels (Other People’s Crazy, and Other People’s Drama), 2 novellas in the series Inclusive Bedtime Stories, 2 short stories in The Night Bazaar series, and several essays. Website, Facebook, Instagram.
