Kerry Washington has lived in several cities, but when it comes to playing favorites, she takes her lead fr om her Yorkie-shih tzu mix, who prefers New York. “She likes the cooler weather and the change in seasons,” says Washington of her pooch, Josie B. “There’s much more interesting stuff to sniff on the street here!” The 32-year-old Bronx native makes her Broadway debut as the latest of David Mamet’s diabolical women in “Race.” And while the former swim team member at Spence now calls the East Side home, she’s still got a soft spot for The Bronx. “There’s a real diversity [here] that you don’t find in a lot of places,” she says. “I don’t mean that in the obvious sense, but that there are so many industries, so many ways people are making lives and making a living.” This is her New York.

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.”

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I have finally caught up with all the events that Kerry attended for the last part of the year… There is over 250+ photos that were added! You can see all the new additions by clicking on the thumbnails below.

Kerry Washington’s biggest film roles are pretty much what you’d expect from a rising star — rom-coms like I Think I Love My Wife, thrillers like Lakeview Terrace, Oscar bait like Ray and The Last King of Scotland. Bronx-born, Spence-educated, and a little bit granola, Washington naturally dreamed of Broadway, but her theater experience to date has been almost exclusively political: Eve Ensler’s V-Day shows, readings for Howard Zinn, high-school-appropriate skits on teen sex. Her starring role in David Mamet’s implicitly provocative new play, Race (opening Sunday), may be the least political act she’s ever performed onstage — and by far the most surprising.

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

Kerry Washington, who makes her Broadway debut in the world premiere of David Mamet’s Race, gave Playbill an exclusive look inside rehearsal in the final weeks leading up to her big debut.

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