To mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Jr., L.A. Theatre Works presents a 38-city tour of Katori Hall's Olivier-winning The Mountaintop beginning January 12 at the Numerica Performing Arts Center in Wenatchee, Washington.
Directed by Shirley Jo Finney, the production stars Gilbert Glenn Brown (CBS’s The Inspectors, upcoming feature film The Best of Enemies) and Karen Malina White (The Cosby Show, A Different World, Malcolm and Eddie).
The tour continues through April 23, playing its final performance at the Lenfest Center at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.
On the evening of April 4, 1968, only a few hours after his famed “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. In The Mountaintop, Hall fantasizes what may have transpired inside that room before the assassination.
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“It was really important for me to show the human side of King,” said Hall in an earlier statement. ”During this time, he was dealing with the heightened threat of violence, he was tackling issues beyond civil rights—economic issues—and was denouncing the Vietnam War. So I wanted to explore the emotional toll and the stress of that. King changed the world, but he was not a deity. He was a man, a human being like me and you. So it was important to show him as such: vulnerable.”
The Mountaintop received its world premiere in London at Theatre 503 before transferring to Trafalgar Studios in the West End. The 2011 Broadway production starred Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett.
For more information visit latw.org.
