Harwood & Burroughs Star In THE MOUNTAINTOP Runs 6/9-7/4 At Theatre503

Theatre503 presents David Harewood as Martin Luther King in The Mountaintop by Katori Hall, directed by James Dacre.

Designer Libby Watson, Lighting Designer Emma Chapman, Sound Designer Richard Hammarton, Video Dick Straker for Mesmer, Voice and Dialect Charmian Hoare 9th June - 4th July 2009. 

"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop."

Martin Luther King retires to room 306 in the Lorraine Motel the night before his assassination. He has just delivered a speech to a Memphis church congregation during the sanitation workers' strike. When a mysterious young maid from the motel visits him, King is forced to confront his past and the future of his people.

David Harewood plays Martin Luther King in a haunting and inspiring portrait that looks beyond the legend to a man wracked by fears for the civil rights movement that becomes his historic legacy. This inheritance has ultimately led to the election of President Obama.

The Cast: David Harewood and Lorraine Burroughs

David Harewood has received huge critical acclaim across theatre, television and cinema. David has played many of the great Shakespearean protagonists including Romeo, Hotspur in Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, Anthony to Vanessa Redgrave's Cleopatra and Othello in the National Theatre's 1997 production, hailed by critics as "gripping, intelligent and emotionally overwhelming". He gave celebrated performances in His Dark Materials (National Theatre) and The Misanthrope (Chichester) and has an extensive and diverse film and television career that includes lead roles in Criminal Justice, Robin Hood, Mrs. Mandela and the films Blood Diamond, The Merchant of Venice, Separate Lies, Mad Dogs and Englishmen and Hawk.

Lorraine Burroughs has performed on stage in Othello at The Globe, War Next Door and Fabulation at The Tricycle, Three Sisters at Birmingham Rep and Tour, Anna and the Tropics at Hampstead Theatre and The Kindness of Strangers at Liverpool Everyman. Films include Hex and REd Rose. For television Lorraine has appeared in Spooks, Wide Sargasso Sea, All About George, Casualty, Down to Earth and Doctors.

Katori Hall is a playwright and performer from Memphis, Tennessee. Her plays include Hoodoo Love, Remembrance, Hurt Village, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, The Mountaintop, The Hope Well, On the Chitlin' Circuit, and Freedom Train. Her work has been presented at the Cherry Lane Theatre, World Financial Center, Lark Play Development Center, the Women's Project and the Classical Theatre of Harlem. Her awards include the Lark Play Development Center PONY Fellowship, Kate NeAl Kinley Fellowship, two Le Compte du Nouy Prizes from The Lincoln Center, Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, NYFA Fellowship, Royal Court Theatre Residency, and the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award from The Kennedy Center. She recently graduated from the Juilliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace playwriting program. Visit www.katorihall.com

James Dacre has directed new work by Dic Edwards, Lucy Thurber, Suzan-Lori Parks, Katori Hall, Bekah Brunstetter, Harrison Rivers, Laura Jacqmin, Josh Koenigsberg, James Nicholson, Nanna Mwaluko and three plays by Torben Betts. He has directed Baal, Barbarians, Come and Go, Orpheus in the Underworld, Three Sisters, and the original projects Onwards, Outwards; Let Us go then, You and I; Work and Caught in the Shadow of the Moon.

James' work has been seen at The Arcola, The Tron, The Cambridge Arts Theatre, Aberdeen Rep, Dundee Rep, Camden People's Theatre, Etcetera Theatre, BAC Scratch, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and in America at 59E59, HERE Arts Centre, The Riverside Theatre, The Atlantic Theatre, Arts Nova, New Dramatists, Collective: Unconscious, The New Professional Theatre and Columbia University. He has worked at The Women's Project, Glyndebourne Opera, Siti Company, Stellar Quines and Theatre for a New Audience and assisted Anne Bogart, RoBert Woodruff, Silviu Pucarete and Kwame Kwei ArmaH. James trained at Cambridge University, and as a Fulbright Scholar in Theatre Directing at Columbia University. He received the 2009 ITV Theatre Director Scheme and is a member of At Play Productions, The Lincoln Centre Director's Lab and the Old Vic New Voices.

www.themountaintop.co.uk

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