By the Way, Meet Vera Stark

Pulitzer Prize-winning Lynn Nottage’s comedy By the Way, Meet Vera Stark looks at what life was like for an African American actress in 1930s Hollywood. Here’s a hint: You could play a maid or a mammy, end of options. Inspired by the life of Houston native and actress Theresa Harris (she was in the 1933 film Baby Face playing a maid to Barbara Stanwyck’s femme fatale), By the Way offers up some insights into the difficult choices black women faced in pre-Code Hollywood (either play a stereotype or don’t work). It also offers up some laughs. (At one point Vera tells her black friend that slaves are being cast for a Southern epic. “Slaves with lines?” her friend asks hopefully.)

“You wouldn’t think this would be a funny topic, that’s true,” says actress Elizabeth Marshall Black, who plays Vera’s white employer, Gloria Mitchell, “but sometimes things are so bad, you have to laugh at them in order to get through. It’s the interaction between the two women that we’re laughing at, what happens in their relationship.” Mitchell, Black says, isn’t prejudiced; she’s condescending…to everyone. Each woman is hopeful the next film will be her big break, and when both get cast in the same movie, things get complicated.

This is the regional premiere of Vera Stark. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays. Through April 13. Ensemble Theatre, 3535 Main. For information, call 713‑520‑0055 or visit ensemblehouston.com. $19 to $44.

Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 & 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Starts: March 20. Continues through April 13, 2014