The Mountaintop

(Paperback)

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The Mountaintop is published here as a Methuen Drama Student Edition, featuring notes and commentary by Martine Kei Greene-Rogers, Assistant Professor at SUNY: New Paltz, US. The introduction offers a discussion of key themes including race, identity, politics, magical realism, one-act plays, historical figures and martyrs. The night before his assassination, Martin Luther King, Jr. retires to room 306 in the now-famous Lorraine Motel after giving an acclaimed speech to a massive church congregation. When a mysterious young maid visits him to deliver a cup of coffee, King is forced to confront his past and the future of his people. Portraying rhetoric, hope and ideals of social change, The Mountaintop also explores being human in the face of inevitable death. The play is a dramatic feat of daring originality, historical narration and triumphant compassion. This edition includes an interview with Ron OJ Parson, director of the Court Theatre production, Chicago 2013/14.

Reviews

Sometimes a play comes out of the blue and knocks everyone for six . . . A beautiful and startling piece, beginning naturalistically before shifting gear into something magical, spiritual and touching . . . A play that keeps you marveling to the end. * Telegraph *
This is a play that honours greatness, while recognising humanity. * The Times *

Author Bio

Katori Hall is from Memphis, Tennessee. Her play The Mountaintop was first produced to great acclaim at Theatre503, London, in June 2009, and received a transfer to the Trafalgar Studios, London, the following month. It won the Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2010, and opened in Broadway's Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, New York City, in October 2011. Other plays include Hurt Village, Hoodoo Love, Remembrance, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, WHADDABLOODCLOT!!!, The Hope Well and Pussy Valley. Her numerous awards include the 2007 Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, a 2006 New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting and Screenwriting, a residency at the Royal Court Theatre in 2006, and the 2005 Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting award. Harvey Young is Dean of the College of Fine Arts and Professor of English and Theatre at Boston University, US. He has been published in academic journals, newspapers and magazines, and is the author of ten books.