8 Hotels

By Nicholas Wright

'Iago only suspected it. I know.'
Celebrated actor, singer and political campaigner Paul Robeson is touring the United States of America as Othello. His Desdemona is the brilliant young actress Uta Hagen. Her husband, the Broadway star José Ferrer, plays Iago.
The actors are all friends, but they are not all equals. As the tour progresses, onstage passions and offstage lives begin to blur. Revenge takes many forms and in post-war America it isn't always purely personal – it can be disturbingly political too.
Based on true events, Nicholas Wright's play 8 Hotels was first staged at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, in 2019, in a production directed by Richard Eyre.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Aug 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781788502504

Nicholas Wright

Dr Nicholas Wright, MRCP, PhD is a neuroscientist who researches the brain, technology and security at University College London, Georgetown University and the New America think tank in Washington DC, where he also advises the Pentagon Joint Staff. On emerging technologies, he has worked with the White House, the UK Cabinet Office and Australian Prime Minister’s office. He has published over twenty peer-reviewed research papers, many of which have been covered by the BBC and the New York Times. He has appeared on CNN and the BBC, and regularly contributes to high-profile outlets like Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Atlantic and Slate. Warhead is his first book.

Book preview

UTA

UTA. My first impression of Paul was that he took up half the room. I mean the personality of him. His eyes were alive, his confidence bounced off the walls and his smile was bright enough to light a fire. He was also incredibly smart. I thought, ‘He ought to be a politician.’ Later, when I saw him speaking at a rally, I realised that he already was one.

It started like this: Peggy had brought Joe and me for Paul to look us over for her production of Othello: Joe as Iago, me as Desdemona, Paul as star of the show. Joe and I got Paul’s approval and we played the Shubert Theatre for two hundred and ninety-six performances: the longest Shakespeare run ever known on Broadway, after which we took the play on a coast-to-coast tour. By then, a lot had changed between all three of