Broadway’s The Great Society, the second play in Robert Schenkkan’s LBJ Plays, has found its complete cast.
The play, which begins performances at the Vivian Beaumont Theater September 6 with an official opening October 1, will feature the newly announced Marchánt Davis as Stokely Carmichael, Brian Dykstra as Adam Walinsky, Barbara Garrick as Ladybird Johnson, David Garrison as Richard Nixon, Ty Jones as Reverend Ralph Abernathy, Christopher Livingston as James Bevel, Angela Pierce as Pat Nixon, Matthew Rauch as Robert McNamara, Nikkole Salter as Coretta Scott King, Tramell Tillman as Bob Moses, with Ted Deasy and Robyn Kerr.
They join the already reported Emmy Award winner Brian Cox (Succession, Frasier) as Lyndon B. Johnson, Grantham Coleman as Martin Luther King, Jr., three-time Tony nominee Marc Kudisch (9 to 5, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Thoroughly Modern Millie) as Richard J. Daley, Tony nominee Bryce Pinkham (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) as Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Tony winner Frank Wood (Sideman) as Senator Everett Dirksen, Tony nominee Gordon Clapp (Glengarry Glen Ross) as J. Edgar Hoover, and Tony nominee Richard Thomas (The Little Foxes) as Hubert Humphrey. Casting for the production was done by Daniel Swee.
Schenkkan’s first play in the series, All The Way, bowed on Broadway in 2014, winning the Tony Award for Best Play and Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for Bryan Cranston’s LBJ. All The Way took place from November 1963–November 1964 as the President worked to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the sequel, Schenkkan follows LBJ after his victorious election through the end of his term in 1969. The new play takes its name from Johnson’s 1964 campaign slogan to describe his domestic agenda as the quest for “The Great Society.”
Jeffrey Richards and Louise Gund serve as lead producers for the Broadway staging, having previously produced All the Way. Though the Vivian Beaumont, most recently home to the revival of My Fair Lady, is located at Lincoln Center, The Great Society is not a Lincoln Center Theater production.
