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“I wrote this play thinking it was going to be the last play I’d write. I was going to quit being a playwright. I was in a place where I was feeling like, “I don’t know if this is the life for me.”…So when Diane Borger [A.R.T.’s executive producer] told me that she would like to take a risk on this play, I think that really brought back whatever faith I had in theater.”

While racism has always been the cornerstone of “Othello,” [actor Chris] Butler says, in the age of the #MeToo movement, the unfair treatment of Desdemona becomes all the more glaring.”

“The longer I am away from an audience, the more insane I feel. I need to come back to the stage in order to maintain my spiritual health.”

“‘Othello’ is famously about race, but there is just as much text devoted to his being an immigrant to the society and not being native to that culture. The specter of religious bigotry is very present. It felt essential to me to put it in a contemporary setting.”

“Society created the environment in which Othello can be brought down,” [Director Bill Rauch] said. “If you take out the social constructs, the story doesn’t happen. And that’s what makes the play so stunningly relevant.”