Ahead of The Bear's Final Season, Ayo Edebiri Opens Up About Her Broadway Breakthrough

By the time Ayo Edebiri made her Broadway debut in Proof as the troubled daughter of a math professor (Don Cheadle), the 30-year-old multi-hyphenate had already won Emmy and Golden Globe Awards as precocious chef Sydney Adamu in The Bear. She also nabbed an Emmy nod for directing the hit series and Writers Guild nominations for penning scripts for The Bear and What We Do in the Shadows. And, in no particular order of importance, Edebiri has performed standup comedy, hosted a podcast, voiced animated characters, directed a music video and hosted Saturday Night Live. Oh, and according to her Proof co-star Kara Young, she possesses “one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard. This woman can sing.”

Given this booked-and-busy resume, it’s fascinating to watch Edebiri portray Proof’s solitary heroine Catherine, whose own gifts as a mathematician have been sublimated in support of her mentally ill father. The experience has awakened a desire to keep acting on stage, a plan fully supported by two-time Tony winner Young, who told the audience at the Theater World Awards, “Y’all just get ready when she makes her musical debut. She is magic, she is love, she is infiniteness, and I know that she can do anything.” Edebiri reflected on her adventures as a Broadway newbie in advance of The Bear’s fifth and final season, premiering on June 25.

Congratulations on a terrific Broadway debut, including a Broadway.com Audience Choice Award. What’s been the biggest surprise?
Oh man, the biggest surprise, in the best way, has been the community. I’ve gotten to see so many shows, and so many people have come out from other shows to support us. Everybody knows everybody, so there’s a real sense of rooting for each other. There have also been a lot of events that feel much warmer than I expected. I went to a Black Women on Broadway celebration last week that was so beautiful and heartening.

You’ve been photographed looking glam at the Theater World Awards, the Drama League Awards and dinner at Anna Wintour’s townhouse—plus eight shows a week.
Plus eight shows a week—that part! [Laughs] [Every performance] really is this living, breathing, undulating exercise. We’re always finding new, surprising things with each other, which keeps it exciting.

Had Proof been on your radar as a student at NYU?
Absolutely. It’s one of the plays you study as a writer, with so many great scenes that you do in scene study. It’s beautifully written, and there’s this heightened-ness in what happens. But it was not something I necessarily thought I would ever get the opportunity to do. Those questions of what roles we can or can’t do—and why—are always interesting to me, so [to be cast in Proof] makes me hopeful for the future.

Did playwright David Auburn—winner of the 2001 Best Play Tony and Pulitzer Prize—change anything, knowing that these Chicago-based academics would now be a family of color?
There’s a conversation about hair, and David was in the room hearing us out and asking questions about that. But there are things he didn’t have to change because they hit even harder for us. One example is the scene where Claire [the New York-based sister played by Young] tells Catherine that she’s selling the house. Not only is this their childhood home, but it may be one of the only houses on the block owned by a Black family. The university has wanted [to buy] the block for years, but there are all these layers about what’s the “right” thing to do in a situation like that. Kara is from Harlem, and I’m from Boston, from a predominantly Black middle-class area, so gentrification is something that’s on both of our hearts.

Having spent a couple of months in Catherine’s world, what’s your view of this rather mysterious character?
I think she seals the corners of her heart and feels things very deeply. She’s not as preoccupied at this moment in her life with the concerns of others. There was a moment last week where I was having new realizations about what each of the characters say, what they know and don’t know. Initially, Catherine is kind of a mimic. If you say something to her, she’ll remember it and quote it back to you later—maybe out of love, maybe out of spite—so that’s been fun to discover and interrogate.

What’s it been like to start the show looking across the stage at Don Cheadle?
It’s meant so much. He is such a role model, not just as a performer but as a human being. To see someone as storied as he is, still questioning and wanting to just do the work has been really cool.

And it’s obvious that Kara Young has been a supportive presence.
Oh yeah, I joke that she and Jin [Ha as Hal, a fellow mathematician] are my Broadway doulas. They’ve been such helpful guides in putting this thing together, not by any particular “guiding,” but just by doing and being. I was instantly struck by the precision Kara has. Even in moments that feel emotionally expansive, she is very precise.

It must feel good to know that this revival is attracting new audiences to Broadway.
For sure, and what’s amazing is how diverse our audiences are, not just in terms of race but in terms of age. There are so many young people at the stage door who have said that this is their first Broadway play. Whether they came because they love Iron Man or Pachinko or Kara’s work, people are excited by this. It’s made me hopeful that more film and TV colleagues will do shows, because we’re living in a time when there is so much messaging about the state of world or the environment or AI or whatever. I go to the stage door and see how important it is for us to connect and be in spaces with each other. For things to be real.

Let’s compare acting challenges. How does a Broadway play compare to standup comedy, or to that exciting first season of The Bear?
It’s hard to rank. People ask me my favorite thing, but it’s all one body for me. It’s exercising different muscles and always staying curious, because I want to be doing this for as long as I can.

How about acting compared to screenwriting compared to directing? If you could only do one, what would you choose?
Only one? I think I would have to let go, live on a farm and completely start over. [Laughs] They all inform each other. The first thing I did was acting in school plays and church plays, but I always loved reading and writing. Then I discovered that writing was a profession you could have, not just a thing you could do. I knew artists, but their work was always supplemented by a more traditional job. When I realized that art could be 9 to 5, everything overlapped and came together.

How are you feeling about the final season of The Bear?
It’s very bittersweet. It’s been a wild, life-changing five years, and I’m excited for everyone who has been on this journey with us to get to close it out. It hasn’t totally hit me, and I don’t think it will until next year around the time when we usually go out to Chicago to start prepping.

Now that Broadway is on your resume, do you have any dream stage roles?
I got to see the last performance of Fallen Angels, and it was such a bold comedic farce, I would love to do anything in that world. I’m also a musical nerd. I love Sondheim; I love a patter song. I’d like to do new work, too. So many things!

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