The Mountaintop by Katori Hall

The play is a daring and poignant re-imagining of Dr. Martin Luther King’s last night on earth. Set at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, on April 3, 1968, as a storm rages outside, Dr. King retires after delivering his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, when he is visited by a mysterious stranger with some intriguing news. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Katori Hall says, “It was really important for me to show the human side of King. During that time, he was dealing with the heightened threat of violence, he was tackling issues beyond civil rights - economic issues, 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.” First produced in New York in 2011, The Mountaintop has been called, “...as audacious as it is inventive...a thrilling, wild, provocative flight of magical realism....Hall keeps her audience guessing - this is playwriting without a net.” - Associated Press. Directed by L. Zane Jones Produced by Morgan Godbolt and Emily Rankin Starring: André Brown Asiah Thomas-Mandlman