Ms. Wiest joked, “I’m very worried about her.”

Ms. Pinkins said, “The only place he sees racism is at the movies,” adding, “He thinks there shouldn’t be all these white people starring in movies.”

As the recent Oscar nominations suggest, he may have a point there. In their work on the play, both women can draw on decades of experience in the entertainment industry where they have often felt limited — if not precisely discriminated against — by appearance and type, with race being only one factor.

Image Joel Drake Johnson, a Chicago playwright, said that “Rasheeda Speaking” sprang from a guilt-inducing encounter he had with an unfriendly hospital receptionist, an African-American woman who was fired after he wrote a letter of complaint. “I felt horrible about it,” he said. Credit... Serge Nivelle

After her early work with Woody Allen (which resulted in Oscars for “Hannah and Her Sisters” and “Bullets Over Broadway”), Ms. Wiest said that she felt she was typed as “a nice mom and that’s it. That’s all that ever came, except in theater.” She also described instances of being silenced or ignored while male colleagues were praised for speaking their minds.

Ms. Pinkins, who began her career in musical theater (she won a Tony for “Jelly’s Last Jam”), had to struggle to be taken seriously as a dramatic actress and to avoid pigeonholing. “There was a period in my youth where I wouldn’t go up for certain roles,” she said. “If they wanted me to play the prostitute, I’d go to the audition, and I’d be looking raggedy. I’m not glamorizing that.”

At this point in her career, she’s moved on, but rich and complicated roles don’t come as often as she’d like. “The parts that I sometimes get offered, I’m like: Really? I’m at the top of my game, and you want me to do this?” she said.

Ms. Wiest said that she finds it difficult to find enough work to pay her rent. “I have to move out of my apartment soon,” she said.