It seems that Josie, a Shih Tzu mix, and Washington “can’t live in Los Angeles.”

But Washington, who is starring on Broadway in David Mamet’s “Race,” is being choosy about where to live in the Big Apple. “I’m frugal. Careful,” Washington says. “Broadway doesn’t give a huge paycheck, and there’s no predictability in this business.”

Washington is also appearing in “Night Catches Us,” which recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

“It’s a guerrilla low-budget indie about the Black Panther movement,” Washington says. “None of us had trailers. We sure didn’t get jaded or spoiled doing it.”

From Dog Channel

1) Jackson Hole, 1270 Madison Ave., at 91st Street
“Jackson Hole was a real home away from home for all us Spence girls — I loved their burgers, chili fries, cheese fries, onion fries. We’d hang out around the corner. When I’m in the mood for a burger, that’s where you’ll find me, though now [that] there’s one in Midtown I go to that one more often.”

2) Whole Foods, Time Warner Center, Broadway at 59th Street
“My go-to place for a quick dinner or lunch. There’s a whole section for sitting. There’s an amazing salad bar, hot foods, a sushi bar, a dessert bar . . . you could do a five-course meal at Whole Foods, but then you couldn’t stand on the express line!”

3) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street
“I used to go to the roof garden as a moody teenager, looking for a place to contemplate life. This was a place my mom and I went together often. There’s a terrific photo exhibit there now, Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans.’ ”

4) Precious Pets, 895 First Ave., at 50th Street
“I was nervous about bringing Josie B. to a new place when I moved back East, but they do a great job, with really precision cuts, and they even document their first session. They have a wonderful gift store with dog bowls and leashes, and there’s a day-care center for dogs, too, so if you can’t pick them up right away, they can stay and play.”

5) Wave Hill, 675 W. 252nd St., The Bronx
“It’s so spectacular — a uniquely New York place overlooking the Palisades and the Hudson River. My best friend was a student at Fieldston, and she lived in Manhattan and did the opposite commute I did. Wave Hill was the place we’d go, sometimes after football games, to hang out and have girl talk.”

6) Lehman College, 250 Bedford Park Blvd. West, The Bronx
“I kind of grew up there, going to school with my mom. The campus is so beautiful! They have a performing arts center that is really, really wonderful in that there’s a lot of Latin music and dance and international groups, like Chinese acrobats. It’s the Lincoln Center of The Bronx.”

7) Tosca Café, 4038 E. Tremont Ave., The Bronx
“My dad grew up in Brooklyn, my mom in The Bronx, and this is a family favorite. It’s traditional Italian cuisine — coal-oven pizza and all — and their weekend buffets are incredible. They have this limitless champagne brunch.”

8) The New York Botanical Garden, The Bronx
“Right now they’ve got the train exhibit, which is magical! They’ve basically re-created landmarks from all over New York City out of twigs and seeds, branches and flowers — there’s a wonderful holiday glow around it.”

9) Quality Meats, 57 W. 58th St.
“I eat a lot of vegetarian foods, but if I’m in the mood for a great steak, they have the best. It’s a wonderful modern steakhouse, a mix of traditional items and new sides, like edamame and English peas. Their salads are incredible, too.”

10) Asphalt Green, 555 E. 90th St. (at the East River)
“It’s really a sports and recreation center for kids and families. I was on the swim team at Spence, and that’s where we’d swim. I come from a swimming family, actually. At the end of my parents’ first date, they agreed to meet at Riis Park Beach.”

From the NY Post

Back when Washington wrote a college paper on Mamet’s plays, “I didn’t really see how it would be possible” to be in one. “I guess a very non-traditionally cast Glengarry, you know? I mean he didn’t write this with me in mind, but I feel really excited to be alive at this point.” In Race, Washington plays a young black legal assistant, the third wheel in a power struggle between two superiors — David Alan Grier and James Spader — over whether to represent a white man accused of assaulting a black woman.

The topic may be new for the playwright, but the style and structure seem awfully familiar. Reminiscent of Oleanna and Speed-the-Plow, it sounds like a typical Mamet power play, complete with politically charged role reversals. “I would say there are some huge similarities” with previous Mamet, Washington says, “and some huge differences. There are some Mametisms that appear for all of the characters in the play. But there’s something very different about her.”

Washington is even more reluctant to venture into racial politics than she is to discuss what’s new about her character. Up until now, about as many minorities have occupied a Mamet script as have sat in his last stage setting, the Oval Office. Having campaigned for Obama alongside Kal Penn, does Washington feel just a bit like the president? “I would never make that analogy,” she says twice. “Please do not put that in my mouth.” Mamet, who in the past decade has become a prolific expounder on public issues, wrote an op-ed in the Times in September on race, “a subject on which it is near impossible to tell the truth.” Washington will only say of it, “I do not think he’s becoming a spokesperson on race. And I didn’t sign up to work with that part of him. I signed up to work with a playwright. I was not hesitant to play this role, I will say.” The one moment in rehearsals that had Washington cringing (to the point where Grier came over with a reassuring hug)? It involved too many words beginning with the letter “f,” not “n.”

From New York Magazine

The Bronx-born actress is a well-known face on the big screen, starring in movies like “Ray” and “The Last King of Scotland.”

Morning:
I get up in the morning and go to the gym. It’s important for me to have a physical, craft oriented check-in…yoga and running lines, or the gym and a voice lesson. Some sort of physical and mental artistic preparation for the day. I’ve never done a run this intense before. I’m trying to get as much sleep as possible…eating well and making sure I’m going to the gym to keep my endurance up. Our stage is raked, and as the only girl in the show, I’m on a rake and then on an extra rake because I’m in heels! So I have to make sure that my core and my alignment is in place.

Off to rehearsal!:
I don’t like being late for rehearsal, so I usually go down really early. I was taking the subway to rehearsal, but I’m not really doing that anymore because the one day I ended up being late because I was recognized by a group of high school kids and it got a little intense so I got off the subway and ended up being late, which I hate!

Stop into the Chelsea Market:
We’re across from the Chelsea Market so I like to go in there and get my lunch for the day. Sometimes there are classical performances inside the market. It’s a good start to the day.

Getting down to business:
I had to go to Washington, so I was gone for a little bit, and when I came back, they put up a “Welcome Home” sign for me! It’s such a close-knit cast. It feels really apropos to be “welcomed back.” I’m back in New York; I’m back home in the theatre. I fell in love with acting on the stage, not in front of a camera, so it feels like returning to my roots.

We’re rehearsing at the Atlantic Theatre Company. It’s very cool to be in a space that Mamet founded — to be in David’s home. There are all these photos on the wall of him as a very young man first starting out. NYU has a partnership with them, so you hear the students doing warm-ups and going over their lines. It’s nice to be sharing the space with kids who are in college and prepping for a life in the theatre.

Doing the work:
It’s very complicated work, which I’m very grateful for because we’ll be doing it for a long time, and I feel like I’ll keep discovering new things about this play…it’s very layered and complicated…in-your-face but also nuanced. It’s exciting to be working with three other actors that are very smart, but at the same time, we’re all grappling with the material. It’s fun being the only girl too…I’m hearing a lot of jokes that I normally wouldn’t hear.

I missed theatre like the way you miss a friend or your hometown. It had been a really long time. So I’m just really excited to be back. I feel a different kind of excitement because it’s brand new. We’re all discovering every day — there’s no previous production to reference. Mamet has been really generous and very supportive. He’s an incredibly supportive director. He knows what he wants and he’s very clear. He cares a great deal about the play and about his actors. It’s very hard work, but it’s like that old saying: “If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.” It’s exciting to sit on the other side of the room and watch him listening and listening and listening and you’ll see him rewrite a line for you. And you know — this is history!

Winding down at the end of the day:
I like to go for a walk to unwind at the end of the day. Being back in New York it’s great to walk around…I feel like I forgot how to walk! Living in L.A., we just don’t walk as much.

I also get to wind down from the intensity of the play by tending to the other work of my career. Whether it’s reading scripts, catching up on my emails, working for Loreal or Movado… there’s a whole other life I have to tend to at the end of the day.

From Playbill