Jireh Breon Holder's TOO HEAVY FOR YOUR POCKET Opens Tomorrow at Roundabout

Roundabout Theatre Company presents the first new play of Roundabout Underground's expanded 2017-2018 season, the New York premiere of Too Heavy For Your Pocket by Jiréh Breon Holder, directed by Margot Bordelon, and featuring Eboni Flowers (Evelyn Brandon), Hampton Fluker (Tony Carter), Brandon Gill (Bowzie Brandon) and Nneka Okafor (Sally-Mae Carter).

A friendly reminder that Too Heavy For Your Pocket opens officially tomorrow, Thursday, October 5, 2017 at the Black Box Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre (111 West 46th Street). This is a limited engagement through Sunday, November 19, 2017. All tickets for Roundabout Underground productions are $25.

In Too Heavy For Your Pocket, Tennessee-born Holder takes us back to Nashville in the summer of 1961. The Freedom Riders are embarking on a courageous journey into the Deep South. When 20-year-old Bowzie Brandon gives up a life-changing college scholarship to join the movement, he'll have to convince his loved ones-and himself-that shaping his country's future might be worth jeopardizing his own.

Now in its 11th season, Roundabout Underground has proven an enormous success since the program debuted in 2007 with Stephen Karam's hit comedy Speech and Debate. Karam's first play commissioned by Roundabout-Sons of the Prophet-was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and his second commission, The Humans, won the Tony Award for Best Play after transferring from the Laura Pels Theatre to Broadway. Joshua Harmon also made his professional debut with Roundabout Underground with the hit Bad Jews. His play, Significant Other, premiered Off-Broadway at Roundabout and transferred to Broadway last season; his new play, Skintight, will premiere at the Laura Pels Theatre in Spring 2018 starring Idina Menzel. Fellow Underground alumnus Steven Levenson (The Language of Trees) won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for his Broadway debut with Dear Evan Hansen, while simultaneously debuting his new play, If I Forget, Off-Broadway at Roundabout. After the success of Too Much, Too Much, Too Many in 2013, Roundabout commissioned playwright Meghan Kennedy to write Napoli, Brooklyn. Lindsey Ferrentino, who made her Roundabout debut with Ugly Lies the Bone, will return with Amy and the Orphans at the Laura Pels Theatre in the spring.

Too Heavy for Your Pocket launches the 11th season of Roundabout Underground, with the goal of introducing and cultivating young artists in Roundabout's 62-seat Black Box Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre. Bobbie Clearly was presented as part of last year's Underground Reading Series at Roundabout, and is the second production in the Roundabout Underground's expanded two-play 2017-2018 season. Prior productions include the acclaimed world premieres of Stephen Karam's Speech & Debate (2007), Steven Levenson's The Language of Trees (2008), Adam Gwon's Ordinary Days (2009), Kim Rosenstock's Tigers Be Still (2010), David West Read's The Dream of the Burning Boy (2011), Andrew Hinderaker's Suicide, Incorporated (2011), Joshua Harmon's Bad Jews (2012), Meghan Kennedy's Too Much, Too Much, Too Many (2013), Jeff Augustin's Little Children Dream of God (2015), Lindsey Ferrentino's Ugly Lies the Bone (2015), Jenny Rachel Weiner's Kingdom Come (2016), and Martín Zimmerman's On the Exhale (2017).

The 62-seat Black Box Theatre, below the Laura Pels Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, allows Roundabout to take artistic risks that are better suited for a more intimate space.

The creative team for Too Heavy For Your Pocket includes: Reid Thompson (Sets), Valérie Thérèse Bart (Costumes), Jiyoun Chang (Lighting) and Ian Scot (Sound).

Too Heavy for Your Pocket was also produced at the ALLIANCE THEATRE, Atlanta, GA (Susan V. Booth, Jennings Hertz Artistic Director / Mike Schleifer, Managing Director) in mutual arrangement with Roundabout Theatre Company.

Photo Credit: Jeremy Daniel