When \u201cRagtime\u201d closes this summer, other projects will take its place, but it will also allow him to spend more time with his wife, Cathryn \u2014 his college sweetheart whom he repeatedly championed during our conversations \u2014 and their three young sons. Henry said the boys are just getting to the age when they understand what he does for a living, and why he\u2019s not home at night.<\/p>\n
Domestic sacrifice comes with a life in theater. For Henry, tapping into that pain intensifies his work, particularly in songs like \u201cWheels of a Dream,\u201d a ballad of hope that Coalhouse and Sarah sing about their son:<\/p>\n
With the promise of happiness<\/p>\n
and the freedom he\u2019ll live to know<\/p>\n
he\u2019ll travel with head held high<\/p>\n
just as far as his heart can go<\/p>\n
and he will ride<\/p>\n
our son will ride<\/p>\n
on the wheels of a dream.<\/p>\n
But Coalhouse and Sarah\u2019s road to happiness is marred by the racism of low-level thugs and high-ranking officials. Eight times a week, Coalhouse is robbed, threatened and called a racial slur \u2014 violence that can stick to an actor\u2019s body long after the curtain call.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn real life, the times I\u2019ve been called the N-word, hard R, I was stunned,\u201d Henry said. \u201cComing from a Jamaican background, we think of ourselves as kings and queens, so my reaction is like Coalhouse\u2019s: \u2018Oohh, there\u2019s a misunderstanding here. You don\u2019t know me. I am not going to get the courtesy I deserve.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Coalhouse and Henry know the power of self-possession, especially when it has been hard won. Conviction like that may take a lifetime to build, and Henry still has a lot of life ahead of him to deepen it. When he stops to take stock of how far he has come, though, he knows his 11-year-old self would be in awe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to tell my brother that all we needed was a bathroom, a fridge, and a room with instruments all around so we could make music all day. I am living that dream,\u201d Henry said. \u201c\u2018Ragtime\u2019 is awesome and it\u2019s giving me a spotlight, and I come back in between scenes to pick up the guitar because I\u2019m always doing things to get my creativity out. I made promises to my younger self that if I ever saw a moment like this, I\u2019d stay hungry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When \u201cRagtime\u201d closes this summer, other projects will take its place, but it will also allow him to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[259952,93103,88,31565,48818,276686,276685,12362,270940],"class_list":["post-640770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-actors-and-actresses","tag-content-type-personal-profile","tag-entertainment","tag-henry","tag-joshua","tag-lincoln-center-theater","tag-ragtime-play","tag-theater","tag-theater-broadway"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}