By the Way, Meet Vera Stark at Webster University

Lynn Nottage

Webster University

Authors

• Lynn Nottage

BY THE WAY, MEET VERA STARK is a seventy-year journey through the life of Vera Stark, a headstrong maid and budding actress in a time when speaking roles for African-American actors were impossible to come by, and her tangled relationship with her boss, a Hollywood star desperately trying to hold on to her career. When Vera lands a groundbreaking role in a new Southern epic, she turns Hollywood on its head and paves the way for future generations of black actresses. Seventy years later, film buffs are left to reflect on the life and legacy of this controversial star, whose eventual fame and fortune may have come at the price of perpetuating dangerous stereotypes. BY THE WAY, MEET VERA STARK celebrates the individuals who fuelled the remarkable American cultural changes of the twentieth century and examines themes of gender and race identity.