Ahead of her performances in Master Class, the actor explains her preparation for the role of La Divina.

How did you prepare to play such a well-known, yet controversial figure as Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s Master Class?
I attended a week of acting master classes in 2014 with Elizabeth Kemp from The Actor’s Studio. In preparation I studied everything I could about Callas and fell in love with her. The beauty of the process was that I had to play Maria as a child and as an adult, exploring all her ‘shadows’ in a series of improvisations.

Callas famously doesn’t sing in the play. How do you portray the musicality of a character with such a unique but invisible talent?
Through the rhythm of her speech, the way she articulates her musical instructions to the students, the way she talks about colour and staying true to what composer’s wanted.

How do you think the character of Callas changes as the play develops?
At the beginning she is a very different woman to the Callas we see at the end. She arrives at Juilliard not only to teach but to prove to...