THE GREAT SOCIETY Primary Week 7 Puts Elizabeth Warren In The Lead

Week after week, and with more 6,500 ballots now counted for the 'Great Society Primary' at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center, theatergoers of The Great Society continue to choose Senator Elizabeth Warren as the Democratic presidential candidate with 36% of the vote (-1% from Week 6), followed by Vice President Joe Biden (17%, NC), Mayor Pete Buttigieg (16%, NC). In the Republican primary field, President Donald Trump comes in at 4% (NC), followed by Governor Bill Weld (2%, NC) and Congressman Mark Sanford (0.6%, NC).

The 'Great Society Primary' launched on August 27, 2019, on what would have been President Lyndon B. Johnson's 111th Birthday. All attendees of The Great Society have the opportunity to 'vote' for the candidate they would like to see win either the Democratic or Republican 2020 presidential primary in one of four voting booths in the theater lobby. 'Votes' can also cast online GreatSocietyBroadway.com; results will be shared following each performance at Twitter.com/GreatSocietyBwy.

In addition, The Great Society is hosting a series of voter registration events in partnership with FairVote, MotiVote, NYC Votes, Young Invincibles and the NAACP, in an effort to support voter registration and turnout on Broadway. For the list of upcoming events, click here. Each event will take place in the lobby of the Vivian Beaumont Theater (150 W 65th Street).

On August 6, 1965, President Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965, landmark federal legislation that prohibits racial discrimination in voting, which took effect during the height of the civil rights movement in the United States. Designed to enforce the voting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Act secured the right to vote for racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South. The Act is considered to be the most effective piece of federal civil rights legislation ever enacted in the country.

Capturing Johnson's attempts to build a just society for all, The Great Society follows his triumph in a landslide election to the agonizing decision not to run for re-election just three years later. It was an era that would define history forever: the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the escalation of the Vietnam War, and the creation of some of the greatest social programs America has ever known-and one man was at the center of it all: LBJ.

Emmy Award winner Brian Cox stars as LBJ in Robert Schenkkan's The Great Society, directed by Bill Rauch. The 19-member cast also stars Grantham Coleman as Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Thomas as Hubert Humphrey, Marc Kudisch as Richard J. Daley, Bryce Pinkham as Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Frank Wood as Senator Everett Dirksen, Gordon Clapp as J. Edgar Hoover, 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, and Ted Deasy & Robyn Kerr as Ensemble. The cast of this striking theatrical event features a company of actors portraying more than fifty characters in two-dozen locations, including other such figures as Jimmie Lee Jackson, Reverend Dobynes, Hosea Williams, Marquette Fry, Governor George Wallace, Sherriff Jim Clark, Norman Morrison, General William Westmoreland, Seymore Trammell, Stanley Levison and Sally Childress.

THE GREAT SOCIETY is currently running at the Vivian Beaumont Theater (150 West 65th St) at Lincoln Center, and must close on November 30, 2019.