The Mountaintop

02/03/2015 2:24 PM

 BRADLEY UNIVERSITY THEATRE PRESENTS THE MOUNTAINTOP

Acclaimed Play Imagines MLK’s Last Night

April 3, 1968. The Lorraine Motel, Memphis, Tennessee. Room 306. Having delivered one of his most celebrated speeches, an exhausted Dr. Martin Luther King retires to his room as a storm rages outside. As he orders room service, he has no idea that this is to be the last night of his life.

Bradley University Theatre proudly presents Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop, the acclaimed play that vividly reimagines King at the end of his brief life and offers up a view of the man behind the icon as he examines his achievements, confronts his destiny, and ponders his legacy to his people.

Directed by Bradley Theatre’s newest faculty member, Susan Felder, the production features seniors Aris-Allen Roberson (Clybourne Park, Spring Awakening) as Dr. King and Kiayla Jackson (A Raisin in the Sun, Clybourne Park, Spring Awakening) as Camae, the irreverent hotel maid who delivers King’s coffee along with some unexpected philosophy and a piece of very surprising news. Produced on Broadway in 2011 with actors Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Basset, the play has been described as one that “ crackles with theatricality and a humanity more moving than sainthood” (New York Newsday). Provocative in its premise, deeply insightful in its compassion and historical perspective, boldly theatrical in its mix of realism and fantasy, The Mountaintop celebrates the strength, the vulnerability, and the complexity of a man, his mission, and his memory.

About the Playwright

KATORI HALL is a playwright/performer from Memphis, TN.  Hall’s plays include: The Mountaintop (2010 Olivier Award for Best New Play), which ran on Broadway at the Bernard Jacobs Theatre starring Angela Bassett and Samuel L. Jackson, Hurt Village (2011 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Signature Theatre), Children of Killers (National Theatre, UK and Castillo Theatre, NYC), Hoodoo Love (Cherry Lane Theatre), Remembrance (Women’s Project), Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, WHADDABLOODCLOT!!! (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Our Lady of Kibeho (Signature Theatre) and Pussy Valley (Mixed Blood).

Her awards include the Lark Play Development Center Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellowship, the ARENA Stage American Voices New Play Residency, the Kate Neal Kinley Fellowship, two Lecomte du Nouy Prizes from Lincoln Center, the Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, a NYFA Fellowship, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, the Columbia University John Jay Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement, the Otto Rene Castillo Award for Political Theatre, and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Playwriting Award.

Hall’s journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, UK’s The Guardian, Essence and The Commercial Appeal, including contributing reporting for Newsweek. The Mountaintop and Katori Hall: Plays One are published by Methuen Drama. Hall is an alumna of the Lark Playwrights’ Workshop, where she developed The Mountaintop and Our Lady of Kibeho, and a graduate of Columbia University, the A.R.T. at Harvard University, and the Juilliard School. She is a proud member of the Ron Brown Scholar Program, the Coca-Cola Scholar Program, the Dramatists Guild, Writers Guild of America East and the Fellowship of Southern Writers. She is currently a member of the Residency Five at Signature Theatre Company in New York City. Katori will make her directing debut with a film adaptation of Hurt Village which received its world premiere at Signature in 2012.

The Mountaintop will run Thursdays through Saturdays, February 19 – 21 and February 27- 29 at 8pm, with Sunday matinees February 22 and March 1 at 2:30pm. Tickets are $14 for adults, $7 for students (with a special $5 ticket for Bradley freshmen), and $12  for Bradley faculty, staff, and seniors (62+). For tickets call 309-677-2650.