I'm the slowest moving living entity on the stage, which mesmerizes people.

They want to know why is this person moving so monstrously slowly.

He must know something.

This is death, sex, and money.

Death, sex, and money. Come on. What else is that?

The show from WNYC about the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more.

I'm Anna Sale.

Andre DeShields calls himself a professional charmer.

For more than 50 years, he's been performing on stage, including now in Hades Town on Broadway.

He's 76 years old and performs eight shows each week. Everybody hungry, everybody's tired, everybody slain for the sweat of his brown.

The way is nothing in the work is hot.

It's a brain yard.

And here this town, way down.

Andre plays the role of Hermes.

He guides the main character through the story.

He's often cast in roles like this.

He also played the all-powerful title character in The Wiz. And in real life, Andre has a lot of

these same characteristics. He commands the room and is oozing with wisdom. A lot of it gained

through experience, as he told me, from a surprising

sexual coming-of-age story to losing his partner and his home when he was in his 50s.

Andre was in his studio apartment in Manhattan when we talked over Zoom. The wall behind him was

painted a deep red. Now, do you know about the color of my wall?

...