Billy Porter Will Direct THIS BITTER EARTH in London

Grammy, Emmy and two-time Tony Award winner Billy Porter will direct a London stage production of This Bitter Earth by Harrison David Rivers. Emmanuel Imani and Alexander Lincoln will head an industry reading on November.

This Bitter Earth by Harrison David Rivers is an intimate, romantic and gripping play about a young black writer and his white activist lover that asks, “What is the real cost of standing on the sidelines?”

An industry-only reading will take place on November 1 starring Emmanuel Imani (Geek Girl, Netflix, The Wheel of Time, Amazon Studios) and Alexander Lincoln (Geek Girl, Netflix, feature film In From the Side - longlisted Best Breakthrough Performance - and Everything I Know About Love, BBC1).

At the Million Hoodie March in 2012, Jesse, a young black man, encounters Neil, a young white man who has unwittingly found himself at the front of the crowd with a megaphone in his hand. Flash forward several weeks, and Jesse and Neil have begun dating. But as the months pass and Neill works his way further into the world of activism, Jesse never enters it. Over the years, Jesse and Neil negotiate the complex “firsts” of their relationship against a backdrop of political demonstrations and discord. With history unfolding around them every day, Jesse and Neil must contend with the fact that, no matter their response to social turmoil, they cannot remain untouched by it.

Billy Porter said, “Harrison David Rivers has written a searingly poingant and necessary play about love and loss through the lens of the fraying American Democratic experiment. Simple. Complex. Direct and filled with compassion all at once. I'm thrilled to be a part of bringing this very special piece to life.”

Billy Porter is a Grammy, Emmy, and two-time Tony Award winner.  Porter is a veteran of the theatre (Miss Saigon, Angels in America, Grease), and a two time Tony winner, including Best Leading Actor in a Musical for Kinky Boots in 2013 and Best Musical as a producer for A Strange Loop in 2022. He has also received a Grammy for the Kinky Boots official soundtrack in the category of Best Musical Theatre Album in 2014. Porter took home the Emmy award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 2019 for his work as Pray Tell on Pose, making history as being the first openly gay man to do so. TIME magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of 2020. Billy released his highly anticipated memoir, Unprotected, in October 2021. His directorial film debut, Anything's Possible, dropped summer 2022 to much acclaim.

Porter began his music career in 1997 with the release of his self-titled (aka untitled) debut album which spawned the top 10 “bubbling under” single, Show Me, and the monster ballad, Love is on the Way, which also appeared at the pivotal moment in the film, First Wives Club. He went on to release At The Corner of Broadway + Soul (2005), Billy's Back on Broadway (2014), and The soul of Richard Rodgers (2017) featuring Pentatonix, India Arie, Leslie Odom Fr. and Cynthia Erivo, among others. Porter scored his first #1 with Love Yourself in 2019 on the US Dance Club Songs Chart. He followed that up with his 2020 reimagining of the legendary Buffalo Springfield anthem, For What it's Worth, and a fierce collab with the Shapeshifters on Finally Ready. 2021 saw Porter covering Juliet Roberts' club classic Caught in the Middle for Red Hot + Free, which supports underserved communities afflicted with HIV/AIDS. He was also enlisted by multi-platinum international superstar Jessie J for I Want Love and he delivered a magical turn on Earth, Wind, and Fire's iconic Shining Star as Fab G, The Fairy Godmuva, in the 2021 remake of Cinderella.

Harrison David Rivers is an award-winning playwright, librettist and TV writer based in St. Paul, Minnesota.

His works include The Bandaged Place, This Bitter Earth and the musicals Five Points (with Douglas Lyons and Ethan Pakchar), We Shall Someday (with Ted Shen) and I Put a Spell on You (with Nubya Garcia). His TV credits include One of Us Is Lying, The Nevers and Wytches.

This Bitter Earth is Thomas Hopkins' first development project by his independently owned company, Thomas Hopkins Productions. THP will focus on producing work in the same vein as his successful West End revival of Martin Sherman's Rose, starring Maureen Lipman, and Simon Stephen's Song From Far Away, staring Will Young, at Hampstead Theatre.

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