PRESS RELEASE FROM DIFFERENT STROKES! PERFORMING ARTS COLLECTIVE:
What: The Mountaintop by Katori Hall, directed by Steph Hickling Beckman
When: June 2nd through 18th , Thursday through Saturday evenings at 7:30pm.
Where: The Be Be Theatre, 20 Commerce Street, Asheville NC 28801
Tickets: $18 in advance and $21.00 for General Admission at the Door. Early Bird Special: Purchase Tickets online by June 3rd and pay no feesDifferent Strokes Performing Arts Collective presents The Mountaintop, the second show of their 6th season, under the direction of Steph Hickling Beckman. Post Show Discussions follow Friday and Saturday performances.
It’s a stormy night at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is exhausted.
He’s working on tomorrow’s speech, and he’s fresh out of smokes. He rings room service for coffee. He calls his wife and fiddles with his phrasing.
His coffee arrives, along with a sexy, sassy hotel maid named Camae. And that’s when things get weird.
Just who exactly is this Camae? How did King spend his last few hours alive? Was he scared? Angry? Did he have regrets? Is God a woman?
(Wait, what?)
The questions build as the night (and Camae’s true identity) unfolds.
Mountaintop is Katori Hall’s attempt to answer these questions (though not in the way you’d expect). Since its 2009 London premiere, the show has captivated audiences across the United States (including a 2011 Broadway run starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett).
And it’s not because of King the legend. Or King the martyr.
No — here we see an imperfect man, chain-smoking, flirting with a woman who isn’t his wife, trying to talk his way out of God’s plans.
We bear witness to his soul, in all its messy humanity. We laugh at his humor and shake our heads at his eloquence. We empathize with his ego and his self-doubt.
If the timing of an MLK-themed show seems… interesting, that’s because it is.
Steph Hickling Beckman, Managing Artistic Director: “At a time when state level, elected officials are tampering with and quantifying our constitutionally granted rights, it’s important to remember just how far we’ve come (and from where), rather than feel discouraged by how far we still have to go. This play is a haunting yet hopeful reminder of one of Dr. King’s most enduring truths: ‘Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Every step…requires…the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.’ ”
In 1963, King dreamed a Dream for us.
Mountaintop invites us to reexamine that Dream through 2016-colored glasses. And asks us —
Do we like what we see?
The Mountaintop features: Desmond Zampella as Dr. King, and Kirby Gibson as Camae
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