2010 William Inge Theatre Festival - Thu. 4/22/10

Thu. 4/22/10
Katori Hall's The Mountaintop takes stage

The Mountaintop, an enthralling stage imagining of about Martin Luther King, Jr. on the eve of his assassination, was a smash at its London world premiere last summer.

Unsurprisingly, producers are announced for its Broadway premiere this fall.

In what other theater town can this much-anticipated story be seen before then? Independence, Kansas. That's where The Mountaintop receives a concert reading on Thursday, April 22, as part of the 29th Annual William Inge Theatre Festival.

Katori Hall is the celebrated playwright of The Mountaintop and she will be in this small southeastern Kansas town to accept the Inge Festival's Otis Guernsey New Voices Playwriting Award. This award recognizes outstanding emerging playwrights. The award is named for the heralded theater writer and scholar Otis L. Guernsey Jr., a frequent visitor to the Inge Festival and an advocate of quality new plays.

In The Mountaintop, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. retires to room 306 in the Lorraine Motel after delivering his famous "From the Mountaintop" speech to a Memphis church congregation. When a mysterious young hotel maid comes to visit him, King is forced to confront his mortality and the future of his people.

The multi-talented Anika Noni Rose co-stars. She has had a busy 2010. January saw the release of Disney's The Princess and the Frog, in which Anika Noni Rose sang the lead. One of her songs, "All Together Now," was nominated for Academy Award as best song. On March 21 the Oscar went to...another film, but that did not slow her down.

On April 22 Anika Noni Rose's latest adventure leads to Independence, Kansas, as she co-stars in The Mountaintop, a story about Martin Luther King, Jr.

On film, she earned much acclaim playing Lorrell Robinson in Dreamgirls. She herself was nominated for an NAACP award and both the soundtrack and the song "Patience" were nominated for Oscars. On television, Anika is seen as Grace Makutsi in The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.

Anika Noni Rose is also a gifted stage actress. She earned a Tony award for playing a resilient Southern maid in the musical Caroline, or Change. More recently, she was back on Broadway starring as Maggie, in Deborah Allen's acclaimed production of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.

The co-star is Gilbert Glenn Brown, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Gilbert Glenn Brown has appeared on professional stages at Boston Huntington Theatre (A Civil War Christmas), Seattle Rep/Circle Rep/Circle Theatre Group (Topdog/Underdog), and Fountain Theatre Los Angeles (Scottsboro Boys), among others.

His film credits include Dreamgirls (dir. Bill Condon) and Night Falls on Manhattan (dir. Sidney Lumet). He has also been on numerous prime time television shows. He has garnered 3 NACCP Theatre Award nominations.

The director is Chay Yew. His credits include shows in New York at the Public Theater; National Asian American Theatre Company; and the Ma Yi Theatre Company. Regional theatre credits include: Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Long Wharf Theatre, Kennedy Center, Goodman Theatre, Huntington Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and American Conservatory Theatre. Mr. Yew's opera credits include the world premieres of Osvaldo Golijov and David Henry Hwang's Aindamar.