With the critically acclaimed Shuffle Along, Or The Making Of The Musical Sensation Of 1921 And All That Followed closing on July 24, Tony Award winner Billy Porter refuses to sit still. He will return to Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company to direct the 2016 production of Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Topdog/Underdog.
The actor, writer, and director who took home a Grammy, Desk Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for his performance as Lola in the 2013 Broadway production of Kinky Boots, returns to Park’s prize-winning play over a decade after starring in a limited engagement at City Theatre production in Pittsburgh in 2004.
“I am over the moon about returning to the Huntington with such an important work,” says Porter in press statement. “I am humbled that both Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois and Suzan-Lori Parks have entrusted me to interpret this material for a new generation. I promise to make you proud!”
Topdog/Underdog tells the story of two co-dependent brothers, Lincoln and Booth, forced to live together and battle poverty, racism, gambling, divorce and abandonment. Lincoln is a former Three-card Monte player, forced to work as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator in a shooting gallery on a boardwalk arcade, while Booth is a grifter turned shoplifter.
The original Broadway run received an overwhelmingly positive response from critics. Topdog/Underdog opened Off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 2001 under the direction of George C. Wolfe and starred Tony Award winner Jeffrey Wright (Angels in America: Perestroika) as Lincoln and Academy Award nominee Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda, Crash) as Booth. When the production opened on Broadway at the Ambassador Theatre in 2002, Cheadle was replaced by hip-hop legend Mos Def. The play transferred to London at the Royal Court Theatre the following year with the same Broadway cast under Wolfe’s direction. For their efforts, Wright was nominated for a Tony Award and both actors took home the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Special Achievement.
In 2015, Porter directed a production of George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum at the Huntington Theatre.
In addition, Parks made history as the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. She also received a number of accolades, including the 2000 Guggenheim Fellowship for Playwriting and the 2001 MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant.
Performances for Topdog/Underdog, helmed by Porter are scheduled for March 10-April 9, 2017, at the BU Theatre/Avenue of the Arts. Cast and creative team to be announced. For subscription information call (617) 266-0800 or visit huntingtontheatre.org/subscribe.
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