This week marks the one year anniversary of the death of Andre Braugher, an acclaimed actor of stage and screen who passed away at the age of 61. He will be remembered for many outstanding roles in his career, including his performance as a cop in the 90s crime drama Homicide: Life on the Streets, as Corporal Thomas Searles in the 1989 Civil War film Glory, and as police Captain Raymond Holt on the more recent hit comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine. In addition to his impressive screen portfolio, the Stanford University alum and Julliard-trained actor was a theater-lover at heart, always returning to the stage between television and film projects to deliver memorable performances. Braugher served on the board of trustees at the Classical Theatre of Harlem, an organization that performs free Shakespeare in Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park. Shortly after his death, The Village Green reported that Braugher’s family requested that fans donate to the theater in his memory.
Braugher’s career and approach to his craft were in many ways shaped by his love of Shakespeare. His first professional theater role was in
During a 1995 interview with NPR’s Terry Gross, Braugher elaborated on the ways his acting has been shaped by Shakespeare, including how he approaches learning his lines as a television actor. “[Shakespeare’s] thoughts are quite long and quite expressive and quite complex, and the actor is forced to think through the line from beginning to end,” Braugher explained. “[Shakespeare’s language] is not broken down into short fragments, but rather longer and more subtle thoughts. So consequently, when I go over to Homicide, when I get a long sentence, I break it down into its component parts, and I use the entire sentence.”
Gross went on to ask Braugher what it is about Shakespeare that drew him in when so many people in modern times find the Bard unlikable and “difficult to understand.” Braugher replied, “if your vocabulary is limited, then your thoughts are limited. And I'm not a man who wants to be limited. And I found something really, really beautiful in Shakespeare, something very spiritual and lovely in Shakespeare. And I'm not willing to give it up.” Andre Braugher’s assertion that Shakespeare’s language has the power to expand our thinking and, in turn, expand our understanding of ourselves and each other, is an idea we at myShakespeare wholeheartedly agree with. In memory of this exceptional stage player and in the spirit of our shared love of Shakespeare, we leave you with this quote, taken from his interview with Terry Gross:
"Shakespeare lives, and his characters express the deepest parts of themselves. In Shakespeare, I find the opportunity to really glimpse the most elemental and human part of a person."
- Andre Braugher (1962-2023)
