By Heather Horton/entertainment editor
The award-winning play The Mountaintop will preview on TR Campus next week.
This fictional portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr.’s last day takes place at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tenn., where he was killed on April 4, 1968.
Student development associate Dayon Harris says this is an ideal time to present this vignette and to remember King.
“It kind of fit perfectly with Black History Month, and his birthday was just the other day,” he said. “This is kind of a way to bring him back into the forefront, to put him on students’ minds.”
Harris said actors from Jubilee Theatre will present two 15-minute excerpts from the play 11 a.m.-noon Feb. 4 in the TRTR Energy Auditorium with a question-and-answer session to follow.
After watching the vignette, the audience will get a good idea about what to expect from the full theatrical version on stage at Jubilee throughout February.
Tre Garrett, Jubilee’s artistic director, said this is a “reimagined theatrical piece” showing King as the man and not necessarily the icon.
Often, our generation remembers the historical events like King’s “I Have a Dream” speech but doesn’t know much about his life or his legacy. Garrett said this play clarifies a great deal of that.
Students will see King from a different perspective after viewing the play in its entirety, Garrett said.
“[The audience] should be able to walk away seeing him as a great man who did great things,” he said.
King will be played by actor Bryan Pitts.
“I respect everything that Dr. Martin Luther King did for the civil rights movement, for people in general, for America the country,” he said. “I think it’s a great honor to be able to portray someone of that stature.”
Pitts said the play is different in that his interaction with Camae, the hotel housekeeper, is a completely fictional account of events.
The challenge is to portray a person that someone has a point of reference to next to a totally fictitious person that no one has point of reference to, he said.
Pitts said his portrayal of King is a more casual representation of who King was as a regular man.
TCC student night will be at 7 p.m. Feb. 8 at Jubilee. The theater will also host three discounted nights for students during February. The discounted rate will be $10 per student.
For more details, contact student development associate Dayon Harris at 817-515-1908.
