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The American Drama Group Europe presents
TNT Theatre Britain in
AMERICA: DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES
The Life and Death of Martin Luther King.
Written by Paul Stebbings and Phil Smith.
Original score by John Kenny
Cast:
Martin Luther King
Adrian Decosta
Rosa Parks/Coretta King
Mary King
Reverend Abernathy
Andrew Earl
Sonny
Takunda Kramer
Jack Nader
Jonathan de Mallet Morgan
Other roles played by the ensemble
Director
Paul Stebbings
Musical director
John Kenny
Movement director
Tom Ward
Costume design
Juliane Kasprzik
Set and construction
Arno Scholz
Production assistant
Monika Verity
Tour manager
Manuel Scheuermann
Administrator
Christian Werner
Office manager
Martha Werner
Office Assistant
Federica Parise
Website design
Laurent Woker
Program editor
Stefani Hidajat
Associate Producer
Angelika Martin
Producer
Grantly Marshall
Music performed by Scot Free Ensemble:
John Kenny
Richard Ingam
Chick Lyall
Andrew Rob
Pete Vilk
Jim Brook
trombone
saxophone & clarinet
piano & keys
bass
drums
electric guitar
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PAUL STEBBINGS is artistic director of TNT Theatre Britain and the American
Drama Group Europe. He was born in Nottingham and studied drama at Bristol
University, where he received first class honours. He trained in the Grotowski
method with TRIPLE ACTION THEATRE in Britain and Poland. Paul founded
TNT theatre in 1980 and received regular Arts Council funding for work in the
UK. Paul has also acted for NOTTINGHAM PLAYHOUSE and TNT and directed
and written for the SHANGHAI DRAMATIC ARTS CENTRE, TEATRO
TERRUNO Costa Rica, PARAGON ENSEMBLE Glasgow, TAMS THEATER
Munich, the ST PETERSBURG STATE COMEDY THEATRE and the Athens
Concert Hall MEGARON. His productions have toured to over forty countries
worldwide. Festival appearances include WIZARD OF JAZZ at the Munich Biennale (critics prize), the
Off Broadway Festival in New York, the Tehran Fajr Festival, the Tokyo International Festival, and
award winning performances at the Edinburgh Festival (THE MURDER OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, in
which he played the title role). His numerous productions for ADGE and TNT include MACBETH,
BRAVE NEW WORLD, MOON PALACE (a dance drama version of Paul Auster’s contemporary
novel), DEATH OF A SALESMAN, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, MACBETH and DR JEKYLL &
MR HYDE. One of Paul’s main areas of interest is the integration of music and theatre which
culminated in his large scale production of Melville’s MOBY DICK. He has directed productions in
Russian, Greek, German and is increasingly working in Spanish, while he recently directed OLIVER
TWIST and THE TAMING OF THE SHREW in Mandarin at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre. This
season sees Paul direct or revive: THE MERCHANT OF VENICE and HAMLET by Shakespeare,
FRANKENSTEIN the Monster and the Myth (which he also co-writes), THE WAVE by Morton Rhue, A
CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens (in English and Spanish) and premier three new plays:
AMERICA Dreams and Nightmares (THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MARTIN LUTHER KING); GOYA IN
LOVE, WAR AND SILENCE (in Spanish) and a new version of PETER PAN. These productions will
be performed in cities as diverse as Beijing, Jerusalem, Prague, Tokyo, Moscow, Hanoi, Istanbul, San
José de Costa Rica, London and Berlin. In June 2013 Paul was awarded an MBE (Member of the
Order of the British Empire) by H.M the Queen for services to British culture.
TNT theatre
The company was founded in 1980. Our first production was a manifesto piece: A commedia dell’arte
life of the Russian director Meyerhold, who was murdered by Stalin. His ideas are still present in
TNT’s work. The company received UK Arts Council (government) funding for extensive tours of
Britain for many years before shifting its focus to international touring. TNT’s initial productions were
all self-written and combined popular theatre forms with serious subjects. In 1983 we began
integrating music into the productions on a complex level. In 1993 we began our collaboration ADG
Europe and expanded our repertoire to include classical texts and radical stage interpretations of
novels. TNT toured internationally from its first year and now tours to over thirty countries a year on
three continents in four languages. Our motto: “Tragedy with a smile on its lips”.
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Rehearsal photograph TNT
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America: Dreams and Nightmares
The Life and Death of Martin Luther King
Paul Stebbings and Phil Smith
Short Synopsis
Act 1
A black teenager is playing among the audience. The black teenager chooses a white female audience
member in the front row and cheekily asks her for a date. Two white men in hoods and armed shoot the
black teenager dead.
Martin Luther King, Baptist minister, preaches love. His wife, Coretta asks him to engage with the injustice
in Alabama. He says he wishes to but fears the hate that comes from the struggle against injustice.
Work song. Black share croppers at work. A Newsman, Jack, addresses TV cameras about tensions
between blacks and their white neighbors. He interviews a cotton farmer who claims there are no such
tensions. After the interview Jack is approached by activist Rosa Parks, but Jack refuses to interview her.
On her bus home, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat for a white man and is arrested. MLK witnesses
the results and begins to waver.
A phone rings in the home of Martin Luther King (MLK). Organizers of the bus boycott wish to use MLK’s
church for a meeting. Ralph Abernathy, another local minister, arrives at the house to persuade MLK to
lead the boycott.
MLK speaks at his church. Marchers in the streets are beaten. MLK declares that such violence will be met
with love. At the end of the speech people rush to touch MLK, as if his body were magical.
Jack reports on the bus boycott. He interviews the Sheriff who tries to portray MLK as a college-educated
outsider. Jack interviews MLK who explains his belief in racial equality for all. In the middle of the
interview, MLK is arrested.
MLK in jail, at prayer. Sounds of wood banged on metal. Voices shouting for MLK to be lynched. MLK is set
free by the Sheriff. His bail has been paid. After he addresses supporters, MLK’s home is bombed. MLK
dissuades two black rioters from killing the Sheriff. Abernathy arrives to say that the Supreme Court has
ruled in their favour; they have won.
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Jack describes the rise of MLK. Off screen Jack tells MLK that he admires his integrity. Jack is impressed,
but when left alone, suddenly he is kidnapped by the FBI apprehended, and pressurized to spy on MLK. An
Agent shows Jack papers that claim MLK has Communists around him.
Birmingham, Alabama. Abernathy is hit with a stone while addressing a crowd. Sonny, an aide, criticizes
MLK for eating steak while others risk their lives. He expresses support for a violent response to attacks.
MLK quietly reasserts non-violence. Sonny reports that more radical blacks are accusing MLK of avoiding
the struggle. Abernathy and Sonny fight and have to be restrained. Jack arrives and confronts MLK with
the accusation of communist infiltration, which MLK powerfully rebuts. MLK tells Jack that he is going to
allow himself to be arrested.
Birmingham Jail. MLK is kneeling and chained, writing a letter on toilet paper. In a stylized sequence, the
letter is spoken as MLK moves from a chained man to a triumphant man.
A white businessman, losing trade, offers to end the racial segregation in the city’s shops.
Jack is with an FBI Agent who complains that Jack is giving too much coverage to MLK. When Jack attacks
the Agent he is beaten up in turn.
The death of President John F. Kennedy is announced by Jack.
MLK discusses pressure coming from black radicals like Malcolm X. Sonny persuades them all that
organizing black voters is the way forward.
Selma County. Work song. A white farmer patrolling. Mrs. Hamer enters, a sharecropper. The Farmer is
furious she has been to register to vote. He dismisses her and her family from the plantation.
Stylized scene of Mrs. Hamer’s registration to vote.
Jack commentates on the famous ‘I have a dream’ speech
Act 2
An urban northern landscape: street hustle, drugs, busts, urban poverty and urban energy. Malcolm X
appears, insulting whites as an inferior race. He denounces MLK’s policy of non-violence. Malcolm X is
gunned down in a hail of bullets.
Hotel room. On TV: riots in Detroit. Abernathy despairs. Despite Sonny’s criticisms MLK sticks to his
beliefs, though hints that he is becoming more radical. Abernathy reports that a “white chick” has arrived
and MLK tidies his appearance in readiness for meeting her. Sonny is disgusted. Abernathy is tolerant.
THE FBI plays tapes to jack of MLK having sex with a woman who is clearly not his wife, but Jack refuses
to expose MLK.
MLK’s hotel. Jack arrives, but is challenged by Sonny. Jack confesses to spying on MLK and shows Sonny
some of the FBI’s evidence. Sonny calls for MLK, but it is the woman who emerges, giving Jack her room
key. MLK enters yelling obscenities at the woman. Jack is worried about what MLK’s behavior might do to
the Civil Rights struggle.
A Memphis bar. Jack is seated; he is drunk and letting slip damaging information about MLK. He is
approached by a white thug, trying to get information on which room MLK is staying in, Jack yells at the
thug who knocks him out. The thug takes a room key from Jack’s pockets.
The cast carry I AM A MAN banners, they are beaten down as racist abuse rings out. When MLK tries to
pacify the crowd of garbage workers, he is abused and laughed at.
In the bar Jack regains consciousness. He tries and fails to ring a warning to the FBI that is an
assassination attempt on MLK is imminent.
Memphis hotel. MLK and Abernathy having a pillow fight. MLK turns serious; unable to fathom the appeal
of violence. Meanwhile Jack is racing to warn MLK. MLK goes out on to his room’s balcony for a cigarette,
and is shot dead by an unseen gunman. Sonny and Abernathy point to where they think the shots came
from. Abernathy checks that MLK is dead, then removes the cigarette packet from MLK’s hand and throws
it away. Sonny dips his hands in MLK’s blood and rubs it on his body. He sees Jack and allows him to come
forward and do the same – they all raise their hands towards the audience – black and white with Martin
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Luther King’s blood on their hands. As this image is held there comes the recorded voice of MLK speaking
shortly before his murder, his theme: We shall overcome.
END
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
It has been a privilege and an education to research, write and rehearse this play. This is story more than
history, it is surely one of the few examples of how we humans might overcome the demons of race hate,
intolerance and almost tribal violence that bedevil our age. The main events and personalities of the Civil
Rights movement must speak for themselves. Nothing in this play or production is invented except where
fiction represents the truth more eloquently than the mere documentary. That must be the purpose of
fiction: to allow us not just to know but to understand and indeed feel the profounder truths. So I have
chosen to present a synopsis of the research that informs the play.
Paul Stebbings 2014
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks rode at the front of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus on the day the Supreme Court's ban
on segregation of the city's buses took effect. A year earlier, she had been arrested for refusing to
give up her seat on a bus.
On a cold December evening in 1955, Rosa Parks quietly incited a revolution — by just sitting down.
She was tired after spending the day at work as a department store seamstress. She stepped onto the bus
for the ride home and sat in the fifth row — the first row of the so called: colored section.
In Montgomery, Alabama, when a bus became full, the seats nearer the front were given to white
passengers.
Montgomery bus driver James Blake ordered Parks and three other African Americans seated nearby to
move ("Move y'all, I want those two seats,") to the back of the bus. Three riders complied; Parks did not.
"Are you going to stand up?" the driver demanded. Rosa Parks looked
straight at him and said: "No." Flustered, and not quite sure what to do,
Blake retorted, "Well, I'm going to have you arrested." And Parks, still
sitting next to the window, replied softly, "You may do that."
After Parks refused to move, she was arrested and fined $10. The chain of events triggered by her arrest
changed the United States.
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In 1955, a little-known minister named Martin Luther King Jr. from the Dexter Road Baptist Church in
Montgomery organized a campaign against segregation and racial discrimination on city buses.
Their demands they made were simple: Black passengers should be treated with courtesy. Seating should
be allotted on a first-come-first-serve basis, with white passengers sitting from front to back and black
passengers sitting from back to front. And African American drivers should drive routes that primarily
serviced African Americans. On Monday, December 5, 1955 the boycott went into effect. This began a
chain reaction of similar boycotts throughout the South. In 1956, the Supreme Court voted to end
segregated busing.
Martin Luther King addresses the boycott leaders including Rosa Parks and the Rev Ralph Abernathy.
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King in Jail in Birmingham.
Birmingham Campaign, 1963
Birmingham Alabama had both the largest African-American population and the most segregation of any
city in the American South. In 1963 the SCLC, undertook the Birmingham campaign. The carefully planned
strategy focused on one goal: The desegregation of Birmingham's downtown merchants.
The movement's efforts were helped by the brutal response of local authorities, in particular Eugene
"Bull" Connor, the Commissioner of Public Safety. He had long held much political power, but had lost a
recent election for mayor to a less rabidly segregationist candidate. Refusing to accept the new mayor's
authority, Connor intended to stay in office.
The campaign used a variety of nonviolent methods of confrontation, including sit-ins, kneel-ins at local
churches, and a march to the county building to mark the beginning of a drive to register voters. The city,
however, obtained an injunction barring all such protests. Convinced that the order was unconstitutional,
the campaign defied it and prepared for mass arrests of its supporters. King elected to be among those
arrested on April 12, 1963.
While in jail, King wrote his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail" on the margins of a newspaper, since he
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had not been allowed any writing paper while held in solitary confinement. Supporters appealed to the
Kennedy administration, which intervened to obtain King's release. King was allowed to call his wife, who
was recuperating at home after the birth of their fourth child, and was released early on April 19.
The campaign, however, faltered as it ran out of demonstrators willing to risk arrest. James Bevel, SCLC's
Director of Direct Action and Director of Nonviolent Education, then came up with a bold and
controversial alternative: To train high school students to take part in the demonstrations. As a result, in
what would be called the Children's Crusade, more than one thousand students skipped school on May 2
to meet at the 16th Street Baptist Church to join the demonstrations. More than six hundred marched out
of the church fifty at a time in an attempt to walk to City Hall to speak to Birmingham's mayor about
segregation. They were arrested and put into jail.
In this first encounter the police acted with restraint. On the next day, however, another one thousand
students gathered at the church. When Bevel started them marching fifty at a time, Bull Connor finally
unleashed police dogs on them and then turned the city's fire hoses water streams on the children.
National television networks broadcast the scenes of the dogs attacking demonstrators and the water
from the fire hoses knocking down the schoolchildren. Widespread public outrage led the Kennedy
administration to intervene more forcefully in negotiations between the white business community and
the SCLC. On May 10, the parties announced an agreement to desegregate the lunch counters and other
public accommodations downtown, to create a committee to eliminate discriminatory hiring practices, to
arrange for the release of jailed protesters, and to establish regular means of communication between
black and white leaders.
Not everyone in the black community approved of the agreement— the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth was
particularly critical, since he was skeptical about the good faith of Birmingham's power structure from his
experience in dealing with them. Parts of the white community reacted violently. They bombed the Gaston
Motel, which housed the SCLC's unofficial headquarters, and the home of King's brother, the Reverend A.
D. King. In response, thousands of blacks rioted, burning numerous buildings and stabbing a police officer.
Kennedy prepared to federalize the Alabama National Guard if the need arose. Four months later, on
September 15, a conspiracy of Ku Klux Klan members bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in
Birmingham, killing four young girls.
Birmingham – state violence meets citizens’ nonviolence.
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Selma Voting Rights Movement and the Voting Rights Act, 1965
The SNCC had undertaken an ambitious voter registration program in Selma, Alabama, in 1963, but by
1965 had made little headway in the face of opposition from Selma's sheriff, Jim Clark. After local
residents asked the SCLC for assistance, King came to Selma to lead several marches, at which he was
arrested along with 250 other demonstrators. The marchers continued to meet violent resistance from
police. Jimmie Lee Jackson, a resident of nearby Marion, was killed by police at a later march in February
17, 1965. Jackson's death prompted James Bevel, director of the Selma Movement, to initiate a plan to
march from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital.
On March 7, 1965, acting on Bevel's plan, Hosea Williams of the SCLC and John Lewis of SNCC led a march
of 600 people to walk the 54 miles (87 km) from Selma to the state capital in Montgomery. Only six blocks
into the march, at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, state troopers and local law enforcement, some mounted on
horseback, attacked the peaceful demonstrators with billy clubs, tear gas, rubber tubes wrapped in barbed
wire, and bull whips. They drove the marchers back into Selma. John Lewis was knocked unconscious and
dragged to safety. At least 16 other marchers were hospitalized. Among those gassed and beaten was
Amelia Boynton Robinson, who was at the center of civil rights activity at the time. The national broadcast
of the news footage of lawmen attacking unresisting marchers' seeking to exercise their constitutional
right to vote provoked a national response, as had scenes from Birmingham two years earlier. The
marchers were able to obtain a court order permitting them to make the march without incident two
weeks later.
After a second march on March 9 to the site of Bloody Sunday, local whites attacked Rev. James Reeb,
another voting rights supporter. He died of his injuries in a Birmingham hospital March 11. On March 25,
four Klansmen shot and killed Detroit homemaker Viola Liuzzo as she drove marchers back to Selma at
night after the successfully completed march to Montgomery.
Eight days after the first march, President Johnson delivered a televised address to support the voting
rights bill he had sent to Congress. In it he stated:
But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger
movement which reaches into every section and state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to
secure for themselves the full blessings of American life.
Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must
overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.
Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on August 6. The 1965 act suspended poll taxes, literacy
tests, and other subjective voter registration tests. It authorized Federal supervision of voter registration
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in states and individual voting districts where such tests were being used. African Americans who had
been barred from registering to vote finally had an alternative to taking suits to local or state courts,
which had seldom prosecuted their cases to success. If discrimination in voter registration occurred, the
1965 act authorized the Attorney General of the United States to send federal examiners to replace local
registrars. Johnson reportedly told associates of his concern that signing the bill had lost the white South
as voters for the Democratic Party for the foreseeable future.
The act had an immediate and positive effect for African Americans. Within months of its passage, 250,000
new black voters had been registered, one third of them by federal examiners. Within four years, voter
registration in the South had more than doubled. In 1965, Mississippi had the highest black voter turnout
at 74% and led the nation in the number of black public officials elected. In 1969, Tennessee had a 92.1%
turnout among black voters; Arkansas, 77.9%; and Texas, 73.1%.
Several whites who had opposed the Voting Rights Act paid a quick price. In 1966 Sheriff Jim Clark of
Alabama, infamous for using cattle prods against civil rights marchers, was up for reelection. Although he
took off the notorious "Never" pin on his uniform, he was defeated. At the election, Clark lost as blacks
voted to get him out of office. Clark later served a prison term for drug dealing.
Blacks' regaining the power to vote changed the political landscape of the South. When Congress passed
the Voting Rights Act, only about 100 African Americans held elective office, all in northern states. By
1989, there were more than 7,200 African Americans in office, including more than 4,800 in the South.
Nearly every Black Belt county (where populations were majority black) in Alabama had a black sheriff.
Southern blacks held top positions in city, county, and state governments.
Atlanta elected a black mayor, Andrew Young, as did Jackson, Mississippi, with Harvey Johnson, Jr., and
New Orleans, with Ernest Morial. Black politicians on the national level included Barbara Jordan, elected
as a representative from Texas in Congress, and President Jimmy Carter appointed Andrew Young as
United States Ambassador to the United Nations.
Riot, fragmentation and the struggles of Martin Luther King to enact his wider vision – 19651968
King reached the height of popular acclaim during his life in 1964, when he was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize. His career after that point was filled with frustrating challenges. The liberal coalition that had
gained passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964[ and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 began to fray.
King was becoming more estranged from the Johnson administration. In 1965 he broke with it by calling
for peace negotiations and a halt to the bombing of Vietnam. He moved further left in the following years,
speaking of the need for economic justice and thoroughgoing changes in American society. He believed
change was needed beyond the civil rights gained by the movement.
King's attempts to broaden the scope of the Civil Rights Movement were halting and largely unsuccessful,
however. King made several efforts in 1965 to take the Movement north to address issues of employment
and housing discrimination. SCLC's campaign in Chicago publicly failed, as Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley
marginalized SCLC's campaign by promising to "study" the city's problems. In 1966, white demonstrators
holding "white power" signs in notoriously racist Cicero, a suburb of Chicago, threw stones at marchers
demonstrating against housing segregation.
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Race riots
By the end of World War II, more than half of the country's black population lived in Northern and
Western industrial cities rather than Southern rural areas. Migrating to those cities for better job
opportunities, education and to escape legal segregation, African Americans often found segregation that
existed in fact rather than in law.
While after the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was not prevalent; by the 1960s other problems prevailed in
northern cities. Beginning in the 1950s, deindustrialization and restructuring of major industries:
Railroads and meatpacking, steel industry and car industry, markedly reduced working-class jobs, which
had earlier provided middle-class incomes. As the last population to enter the industrial job market,
blacks were disadvantaged by its collapse. At the same time, many ethnic whites moved out of the inner
cities to newer housing in expanding suburbs. Urban blacks who did not follow the middle class out of the
cities became concentrated in the older housing of inner city neighborhoods – effectively black ghettoes.
Because jobs in new service areas and parts of the economy were being created in suburbs,
unemployment was much higher in many black than in white neighborhoods, and crime was frequent.
African Americans rarely owned the stores or businesses where they lived. Many were limited to menial
or blue-collar jobs. African Americans often made only enough money to live in dilapidated tenements
that were privately owned, or poorly maintained public housing. They also attended schools that were
often the worst academically in the city and that had fewer white students than in the decades before
WWII.
The racial makeup of most major city police departments, largely ethnic white (especially Irish), was a
major factor in adding to racial tensions. Even a black neighborhood such as Harlem had a ratio of one
black officer for every six white officers. The majority-black city of Newark, New Jersey had only 145
blacks among its 1322 police officers.
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, but the new law had no immediate
effect on living conditions for blacks. A few days after the act became law, a riot broke out in the South
Central Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts. Like Harlem, Watts was an impoverished neighborhood with
very high unemployment. Its residents were supervised by a largely white police department that had a
history of abuse against blacks.
While arresting a young man for drunk driving, police officers argued with the suspect's mother before
onlookers. The conflict triggered a massive destruction of property through six days of rioting. Thirty-four
people were killed and property valued at about $30 million was destroyed, making the Watts Riots
among the most expensive in American history.
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With black militancy on the rise, ghetto residents directed acts of anger at the police. Black residents
growing tired of police brutality continued to riot. Some young people joined groups such as the Black
Panthers, whose popularity was based in part on their reputation for confronting police officers. Riots
among blacks occurred in 1966 and 1967 in cities such as Atlanta, San Francisco, Oakland, Baltimore,
Seattle, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Newark, Chicago, New York City (specifically in Brooklyn, Harlem
and the Bronx), and worst of all in Detroit.
In Detroit, a comfortable black middle class had begun to develop among families of blacks who worked at
good-paying jobs in the automotive industry. Blacks who had not moved upward were living in much
worse conditions, subject to the same problems as blacks in Watts and Harlem. When white police officers
shut down an illegal bar on a liquor raid and arrested a large group of patrons during the hot summer,
furious residents rioted.
Migrants and immigrants had the older housing in the city. Demonstrating the economic basis of the
suburban migration, Detroit lost some of its black middle class as well, as did cities such as Washington,
DC and Chicago during the next decades.
As a result of the riots, and migration of jobs and the middle class to the suburbs, formerly prosperous
industrial cities, such as Detroit, Newark, and Baltimore, now have less than 40% white population.
Changes in industry caused continued job losses, depopulation of middle classes, and concentrated
poverty in such cities in the late 20th century.
President Johnson created the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders in 1967. The
commission's final report called for major reforms in employment and public assistance for black
communities. It warned that the United States was moving toward separate white and black societies.
Detroit 1967
Memphis, King Assassination and the Poor People's March, 1968
Rev. James Lawson invited King to Memphis, Tennessee, in March 1968 to support a sanitation workers'
strike. These workers launched a campaign for union representation after two workers were accidentally
killed on the job, and King considered their struggle to be a vital part of the Poor People's Campaign he
was planning.
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A day after delivering his stirring "I've Been to the Mountaintop" sermon, which has become famous for
his vision of American society, King was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Riots broke out in black
neighborhoods in more than 110 cities across the United States in the days that followed, notably in
Chicago, Baltimore, and in Washington, D.C. The damage done in many cities destroyed black businesses
and homes, and slowed economic development for a generation.
The day before King's funeral, April 8, Coretta Scott King and three of the King children led 20,000
marchers through the streets of Memphis, holding signs that read: "Honor King End Racism" and "Union
Justice Now". Armed National Guardsmen lined the streets, sitting on M-48 tanks, to protect the marchers,
and helicopters circled overhead. On April 9 Mrs. King led another 150,000 people in a funeral procession
through the streets of Atlanta. Her dignity revived courage and hope in many of the Movement's members,
cementing her place as the new leader in the struggle for racial equality.
“Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his life for the poor of the world, the garbage workers of Memphis and the
peasants of Vietnam. The day that Negro people and others in bondage are truly free, on the day want is
abolished, on the day wars are no more, on that day I know my husband will rest in a long-deserved
peace.”—Coretta King
Rev. Ralph Abernathy succeeded King as the head of the SCLC and attempted to carry forth King's plan for
a Poor People's March. It was to unite blacks and whites to campaign for fundamental changes in
American society and economic structure. The march went forward under Abernathy's plainspoken
leadership but did not achieve its goals.
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Adrian Decosta was born in South East London, he has a twin brother and both him
and his brother began modelling for Norrie Carr and worked for leading brand names
such as Disney and travelled the world for leading fashion labels. Adrian caught the
theatre bug young and performed in amateur roles to fulfill it. Adrian studied acting at
Rose Bruford College, a leading Drama school. He went on to gain the Lilian Bayliss
Award for acting potential. Adrian graduated Rose Bruford with a B.A. Honours
degree and went straight into the professional industry. Adrian's first role was the lead
in Ma Vie En Rose at the Young Vic, he then played the title role in the biography
play Bella's Gate Boy based on the life of Trevor Rhone directed by Yvonne
Brewster. Adrian continued his career working for The Royal Shakespeare
Company in The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew, a Midsummer Night’s Dream Project and
World Premiered The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbs. He then went on to play on the Olivier Stage at the National
Theatre in Mark Ravenhill's adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Nation. Adrian has played major roles in Titus
Andronicus and A Taste of Honey at the Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh. We Love You City at the Belgrade
Theatre Coventry and Venus/Mars at the Bush Theatre London. Adrian last stage role to date was Duwayne
for New Vic Productions, where he played the title role as Duwayne Brooks the best friend of the murdered
black teenager Stephen Lawrence. Adrian's film credit include Jab Tak Hai Jaan by the late Bollywood director
Yash Chopra. Adrian also worked on a series for BBC Radio4 called the Music Teacher.
Daniel Boys.
Jonathan de Mallet Morgan trained at Webber Douglas Academy in London.This is
his second production with TNT theatre. His theatre credits include: La Boheme
(Soho Theatre), Brave New World (TNT/ International Tour), Nicked (HighTide),
Dancing Queen (UK Tour), Mr Kolpert (Greenwich Playhouse), The Highwayman
(C, Edinburgh Festival), Beauty & The Beast (Royal Spa Theatre), Sleeping Beauty
(Princess Theatre), Salome, Odette (The Bridewell Theatre), The Problem with
Being It (Castle Theatre, Wellingborough), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (UK
Tour), Hound of the Baskervilles (Brockley Jack Theatre), The Trash Christ
(Godalming Productions), Punk Princess (workshop), Holly Golightly (Sadler’s
Wells/ Lost Musicals), Wish Upon a Prince (Jacksons Lane) His film work includes:
Fused (winner of 48 hr film project), The Fourteenth and Bloodfuel. Jonathan can
also be heard as part of the choir on Douglas Whyte’s Christmas Song featuring
Andrew Earl has been acting since the early nineties and began classical training
after Television appearances in London’s Burning, Desmond's, Pork Pie, The
Old Bill and East Enders to name just a few. Having fallen in love with the arts he
still acts and enjoys it as much as when he began 20 years ago. Recent stage
successes have seen him in an award winning One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
and Of Mice and Men which also received Olivier nominations and an Olivier
Award. Last year he was also in a wonderful production in Hamlet as Polonius. .
Despite minor appearances in Feature Films since the nineties he's yet to land the
meaty film role that would challenge him enough."But though he will suffer trying to
get there, he will win one".
16
Phil Smith is a performance-maker, writer, ambulatory researcher and lecturer. He
was awarded his PhD in 2013 and is an Associate Professor (Reader) at the School
of Humanities & Performing Arts, Plymouth University (UK). He is the company
dramaturg of TNT (Munich). As a playwright over 100 of his plays and adaptations,
many of them co-written with Paul Stebbings, have received professional productions
and have been seen by over 3 million people. When not working for TNT he
specializes in creating performances related to walking, site-specificity,
mythogeographies and counter-tourism. He writes and performs ‘mis-guided tours’,
gently subverting sites of heritage. He is a core member of site-based arts collective
Wrights & Sites; and a co-author of the company’s various ‘mis-guides’ including ‘An
Exeter Mis-Guide’ (2003) and ‘A Mis-Guide To Anywhere’ (2006). He has recently begun working on interdisciplinary dance-based performances with Jane Mason (on her ‘Life Forces project’) and with choreographer
Siriol Joyner. His most recent performance work includes Blind Ditch’s ‘This City’s Centre’, ‘Shapes’ for b-side
Festival, and ‘Signs and Wonders’ with Katie Etheridge and Simon Persighetti for Lancashire Witches 400 in
Lancaster and Pendle. His books include ‘On Walking’ and ‘Enchanted Things’ (2014), ‘Counter-Tourism:
The Handbook’ and ‘A Sardine Street Box of Tricks’ (2012) and ‘Mythogeography’ (2010) (all Triarchy
Press) and as a co-writer ‘Walking, Writing and Performance’ (2009, Intellect). His first novel ‘Alice’s Dérives
in Devonshire’ will be published in late 2014.
Mary King, born in London, grew up wanting to be a singer. Like most little girls she
sang using hair -brushes as her microphone. She would learn dance routines from music
videos and act as if she was the musician. This later developed into a love for acting.
Mary trained at Sylvia Young Theatre School in her teenage years on the weekends and
took part in amateur plays. Due to the advice of her Mother, Mary went to University and
holds a BSc in Psychology and Human Resource Management. Mary believes a lot of
her experiences during University, and the degree itself contributes to her acting.
Although acting is May's first love, she still very much enjoys singing and dancing. Mary
was fortunate to dance in the London Olympic Closing Ceremony 2012. Mary graduated
from The American Musical Theatre Academy in July 2014 and she seeks to impact,
make a difference and enlighten individuals through her roles in theatre.
Takunda Kramer is from Zimbabwe but moved to London England in 2008 when he got
a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and trained there for the next
three years, graduating in 2011. Some of his roles whilst at RADA where, Angelo in
Measure for Measure, as well as Othello, Mr Sloane in Entertaining Mr Sloane,
Dionysus in The Bacchae, as well as Oshoosi Size in the Brother’s Size. Some of his
work since graduating are, Orsino in Twelfth Night at the Orange Tree Theatre, Sour
Lips at the Oval House theatre London , Eye of the Needle at the Bush Theatre,
Chasing the Moon at the Drill Hall, If Only Sharukh Khan at Theatre in the Mill.
John Kenny has performed and broadcast in over 50 nations. He is internationally
acclaimed for his interpretation of contemporary music but also works extensively with
improvisation and early music. He is particularly active in collaborations with dance and
theatre: in 1983 he began his long collaboration with TNT Theatre and playwright Paul
Stebbings, performing, composing and directing the music for productions which continue
to tour worldwide, including Cabaret Faust, Tempest Now, The Wizard of Jazz, Moby
Dick, Moon Palace, The Taming of The Shrew, Romeo & Juliet, The Mystery of
Edgar Allan Poe, Illiam Dhone and The Wave. Autumn 2014 sees the premier of
Mareica: Dreams and Nightmares and the re-staging of The Wave. Kenny’s past
commissions have included the London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Huddersfield
Contemporary Music Festival, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Edinburgh Contemporary Arts Trust, Chamber Group
of Scotland, Dance Umbrella, St. Magnus Festival, BBC Proms in The Park, American Drama Group Europe, The
New Haven International Festival of Arts and Ideas (USA) the Festival d’ Angers, France, Vokal Nord (Norway),
CCMIX Institut (France), and the city of Wroclaw, Poland.
John is a professor at both the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and The Royal Conservatoire of
Scotland, and is also head of brass at St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh. Since the early 1990’s he has also
become increasingly involved with musical archaeology, and in 1993 he became the first person for 2000 years to
play the great Celtic war horn known as the carnyx. He now lectures and performs on the instrument
internationally. In 2003 he performed his composition The Voice of The Carnyx to an audience of 65,000 in the
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Stade De France, Paris. In 2009 he undertook a month long recital tour of the USA which included the world
premiere of his composition Wild Stone for alto flute and carnyx, and released his seventh solo album,
Embracing the Unknown. In September 2013 John Kenny and playwright Paul Stebbings celebrated their 30 th
year of collaboration with the premier of The Wave at Berlin’s Akademie der Künst.
John Kenny is also a founder member of the European Music Archaeology Project (EMAP) with whom he is
currently working to bring to fruition the reconstruction of many lip reed instruments of antiquity. To find out more
about John’s work visit: www.carnyxscotland.co.uk
Juliane Kasprzik was born in north Germany. She studied design in Hamburg. She
has worked extensively in German theatres, designing or assisting for the Hamburg
Schauspielhaus and the city theatres in Kassel, Darmstadt as well as the Residenztheater in Munich and many theatres on the “Free” or alternative scene in Germany’s
theatre capital such as ETA and Theaterzelt. She has designed costumes for the all
recent TNT and ADGE productions including FRANKENSTEIN, HAMLET, THE
WAVE, A CHRISTMAS CAROL, MACBETH, DR JEKYLL & MR HYDE and ROMEO
& JULIET.
Arno Scholz (set design) was born in Berlin and haslived in Munich for many years.
He studied at the Muenchner Kunstakademie. After two years at the Theater der
Jugend started creating and building stage sets. Since then he has created many sets
for independent theatres:Vaganten Buehne Berlin, Theater in der Garage Erlangen,
TamS Theatre, Theater 44 and Modernes Theater in Munich and also for THE
AMERICAN DRAMA GROUP EUROPE. He has also worked on TV productions for
example Tatort Detective series but is now focusing on set building for touring
theatre. He has designed and constructed sets for all of TNT’s recent productions
including ROMEO AND JULIET, DON QUIJOTE, OTHELLO, THE WAVE, DR
JEKYLL AND MR HYDE and BRAVE NEW WORLD.
Tom Ward trained in dance and choreography at London Contemporary Dance
School in 1986. Since leaving he has danced with London Contemporary Dance
Theatre, Rambert Dance Company, DV8, Adventures In Motion Pictures and many
others. He has worked with TNT and ADG Europe, Complicite’, Royal National
Theatre London and appeared in several musical theatre productions including Hair at
The OldVic, Cabaret at The Lyric Theatre in London’s West End and most recently has
been playing the role of Frank Sinatra in The Rat Pack Live From Las Vegas Tour
around the UK, Europe and America. This is his third production with TNT after MOBY
DICK and ROMEO & JULIET.
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FBI boss Hoover poses with machine gun
The FBI, J Edgar Hoover and Martin Luther King
"In the light of King's powerful demagogic speech…We must mark him now, if we have not done so before,
as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro
and national security." FBI memo after King’s “I have a dream” speech.
In response to King's address, J. Edgar Hoover, the all-powerful FBI director, intensified the bureau’s
secret war against the civil rights leader.
For years, Hoover had been obsessed by King, viewing him as a profound threat to national security. He
was fixated on Stanley Levison, an adviser to King who years earlier had been involved with the
Communist Party, and in 1962 the FBI director convinced Attorney General Robert Kennedy to authorize
tapping the business phone and office of Levison, who often spoke to King. Then Hoover, as Tim Weiner
puts it in his masterful history of the FBI, Enemies, began to "bombard" President John Kennedy, Vice
President Lyndon Johnson, Bobby Kennedy, and leading members of Congress with "raw intelligence
reports about King, Levison, the civil rights movement, and Communist subversion." Hoover’s main aim
was to discredit King among the highest officials of the US government. Hoover kept firing off memos,
accusing King of a leading role in the Communist conspiracy against America.
In 1963, six weeks after the Washington march, pressured by Hoover, Bobby Kennedy authorized full
electronic surveillance of King. FBI agents placed bugs in King's hotel rooms; they tapped his phones; they
bugged his private apartment in Atlanta. The surveillance collected conversations about the civil rights
movement's strategies and tactics—and also the sounds of sexual activity. Hoover was enraged by the
intelligence about King's private life, and while discussing the matter with an aide, an irate Hoover banged
a glass-topped desk with his fist and shattered it.
When Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Hoover told a group of reporters that King
was "the most notorious liar in the country." But the FBI's war on King was uglier than name-calling.
Weiner writes: “A package of the King sex tapes was prepared by the FBI's lab technicians, with an
accompanying poison-pen letter and sent both to King's home. His wife opened the package.”
"King, look into your heart," the letter read. The American people soon would "know you for what you
are—an evil, abnormal beast…There is only one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy,
abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation."
The President [Lyndon Johnson] knew Hoover had taped King's sexual assignations. Hoover was using the
information in an attempt to disgrace King at the White House, in Congress, and in his own home.
Worse, it seems the FBI was trying to encourage King to kill himself.
The FBI refused to pass evidence or rumor of plots to murder King to him or to Civil Rights organizations.
The following year, King was assassinated by James Earl Ray, who subsequently evaded an FBI manhunt,
to be captured months later by Scotland Yard in England.
As the March on Washington is remembered five decades later, it should be noted that King's successes
occurred in the face of direct and underhanded opposition from forces within the US government, most of
19
all FBI chief Hoover, who did not hesitate to abuse his power and use sleazy and illegal means to mount
his vendetta against King.
J Edgar Hoover, FBI chief, with the Kennedy brothers at the White House.
20
Malcolm X violence and non-violence
Malcolm X was a disadvantaged northern youth Malcolm X in
1964 who became a petty criminal and turned to Islam and
political radicalism whilst in jail. He became a spokesman for the
Nation of Islam, a black separatist cult which equated the white
man with Satan.
In March 1964, Malcolm X (Malik El-Shabazz), national
representative of the Nation of Islam, formally broke with that
organization, and made a public offer to collaborate with any civil
rights organization that accepted the right to self-defense and the
philosophy of Black nationalism (which Malcolm said no longer
required Black separatism). Gloria Richardson - head of the
Cambridge, Maryland chapter of SNCC, leader of the Cambridge
rebellion, and an honored guest at The March on Washington immediately embraced Malcolm’s offer. Mrs. Richardson, “the
nation’s most prominent woman [civil rights] leader,” told
Baltimore Afro-American that “Malcolm is being very practical…The
federal government has moved into conflict situations only when
matters approach the level of insurrection. Self-defense may force
Washington to intervene sooner.” Earlier, in May 1963, James Baldwin had stated publicly that “the
Black Muslim movement is the only one in the country we can call grassroots, I hate to say
it…Malcolm articulates for Negroes, their suffering…he corroborates their reality...”
On March 26, 1964, as the Civil Rights Act was facing stiff opposition in Congress, Malcolm had a
public meeting with Martin Luther King Jr. at the Capitol building. Malcolm had attempted to begin
a dialog with Dr. King as early as 1957, but King had rebuffed him. Malcolm had responded by
calling King an “Uncle Tom” who turned his back on black militancy in order to appease the white
power structure. However, the two men were on good terms at their face-to-face meeting.[ There
is evidence that King was preparing to support Malcolm’s plan to formally bring the US government
before the United Nations on charges of human rights violations against African-Americans.
Malcolm now encouraged Black Nationalists to get involved in voter registration drives and other
forms of community organizing to redefine and expand the movement. Civil rights activists became
increasingly combative in the 1963 to 1964 period, owing to events such as the thwarting of the
Albany campaign, police repression and Ku Klux Klan terrorism in Birmingham, and the
assassination of Medgar Evers. Mississippi NAACP Field Director Charles Evers–Medgar Evers’
brother spoke out on February 15, 1964: “non-violence won’t work in Mississippi…we made up our
minds…that if a white man shoots at a Negro in Mississippi, we will shoot back.” The repression of
sit-ins in Jacksonville, Florida provoked a riot that saw black youth throwing Molotov cocktails at
police on March 24, 1964. Malcolm X gave extensive speeches in this period warning that such
militant activity would escalate further if African-Americans’ rights were not fully recognized. In his
landmark April 1964 speech “The Ballot or the Bullet”, Malcolm presented an ultimatum to white
America: “There's new strategy coming in. It'll be Molotov cocktails this month, hand grenades
next month, and something else next month. It'll be ballots, or it'll be bullets.”
On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was preparing to address the Organization of Afro-American
Unity in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom when someone in the 400-person audience started
shouting abuse. As Malcolm X and his bodyguards tried to quell the disturbance, a man rushed
forward and shot him once in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun; two other men charged the
stage firing semi-automatic handguns. Malcolm X was dead. The assassins were caught and
convicted, all were members of the Nation of Islam.
Martin Luther King reacted: While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race
problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his
finger on the root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one
can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems that we face as a race.
21
The Lynching of Emmett Till
The horrific death of a Chicago teenager helped spark the
civil rights movement
In the summer of 1955, Mamie Till gave in to her son's please to
visit relatives in the South. But before putting her only son Emmett
on bus in Chicago, she gave him a stern warning:
"Be careful. If you have to get down on your knees and bow when a
white person goes past, do it willingly."
Emmett, all of 14, didn't heed his mother's warning. On Aug. 27,
1955, Emmett was beaten and shot to death by two white men who
threw the boy's mutilated body into the Tallahatchie River near
Money, Mississippi.
Emmett's crime: talking and maybe even whistling to a white woman at a local grocery store.
Emmett's death came a year after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision
outlawed segregation. For the first time, blacks had the law on their side in the struggle for
equality. Emmett's killing struck a chord across a nation. White people in the North were as
shocked as blacks at the cruelty of the killing. The national media picked up on the story, and the
case mobilized the NAACP, which provided a safe house for witnesses in the trial of the killers.
Emmett became a martyr for the fledgling civil rights movement that would engross the country in
a few years.
Mamie Till spoke out about her son's death. She held an open-casket funeral for her son, so that
the world could see "what they did to my boy." Emmett's face was battered beyond recognition and
he had a bullet hole in his head. The body had decomposed after spending several days
underwater. Roy Bryant, whose wife Carolyn was the white woman at the store, and his halfbrother, J.W. Milam, were tried for Emmett's murder and acquitted by a jury of 12 white men.
22
Fannie Lou Hamer: grassroots activist.
Fannie Lou Hamer, born in Mississippi, was working in the fields
when she was six, and was only educated through the sixth grade.
She married in 1942, and adopted two children. She went to work
on the plantation where her husband drove a tractor, first as a field
worker and then as the plantation's timekeeper. She also attended
meetings of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, where
speakers addressed self-help civil rights, and voting rights.
In 1962, Fannie Lou Hamer volunteered to work with the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) registering black voters
in the South. She and the rest of her family lost their jobs for her
involvement, and SNCC hired her as a field secretary. She was able
to register to vote for the first time in her life in 1963, and then taught others what they'd need to
know to pass the then-required literacy test. In her organizing work, she often led the activists in
singing Christian hymns about freedom: "This Little Light of Mine" and others.
She helped organize the 1964 "Freedom Summer" in Mississippi, a campaign sponsored by SNCC,
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the
NAACP.
In 1963, after being charged with disorderly conduct for refusing to go along with a restaurant's
"whites only" policy, Hamer was beaten so badly in jail, and refused medical treatment, that she
was permanently disabled.
Because African Americans were excluded from the Mississippi Democratic Party, the Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) was formed, with Fannie Lou Hamer as a founding member and
vice president. The MFDP sent an alternate delegation to the 1964 Democratic National Convention,
with 64 black and 4 white delegates. Fannie Lou Hamer testified to the convention's Credentials
Committee about violence and discrimination faced by black voters trying to register to vote, and
her testimony was televised nationally.
The MFDP refused a compromise offered to seat two of their delegates, and returned to further
political organizing in Mississippi, and in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting
Rights Act.
From 1968 to 1971, Fannie Lou Hamer was a member of the Democratic National Committee for
Mississippi. Her 1970 lawsuit, Hamer v. Sunflower County, demanded school desegregation. She
ran unsuccessfully for the Mississippi state Senate in 1971, and successfully for delegate to the
Democratic National Convention of 1972.
She also lectured extensively, and was known for a signature line she often used, "I'm sick and
tired of being sick and tired." She was known as a powerful speaker, and her singing voice lent
another power to civil rights meetings.
Fannie Lou Hamer brought a Head Start program to her local community, to form a local Pig Bank
cooperative (1968) with the help of the National Council of Negro Women, and later to found the
Freedom Farm Cooperative (1969). She helped found the National Women's Political Caucus in
1971, speaking for inclusion of racial issues in the feminist agenda.
In 1972 the Mississippi House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring her national and
state activism.
23
Four days before his murder Martin Luther King gave this speech: (with which we end
the production):
Deep in my heart, I do believe, "we shall overcome."
You know, I've joined hands so often with students and others behind jail bars singing it, "We shall
overcome."
Sometimes we've had tears in our eyes when we joined together to sing it, but we still decided to
sing it, "We shall overcome." Oh, before this victory's won, some will have to get thrown in jail
some more, but we shall overcome.
Don't worry about us. Before the victory's won, some of us will lose jobs, but we shall overcome.
Before the victory's won, even some will have to face physical death. But if physical death is the
price that some must pay to free their children from a permanent psychological death, then
nothing shall be more redemptive.
We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.
We shall overcome because Carlyle is right, "No lie can live forever."
We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right: "Truth crushed to earth will rise again."
We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right: Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong
forever on the throne, yet that scaffold sways the future and behind the dim unknown standeth
God within the shadows keeping watch above his own.
We shall overcome because the Bible is right, "You shall reap what you sow"
We shall overcome.
Deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome.
24
25
American Dreams and Nightmares Quiz
1/
What was Martin Luther King Jr’s given name at birth?
A:
Michael King.
2/
Why did his father change Martin Luther King Jr’s name?
A:
To honour the sixteenth century German Protestant reformer Martin Luther.
3/
In what year was King assassinated?
A:
1968.
4/
What global prize did King win in 1964?
A:
The Nobel Peace Prize.
5/
When was ‘Martin Luther King, Jr Day’ first instituted as a US federal holiday?
A:
1984.
6/
Where was King born?
A:
Atlanta, Georgia.
7/
Where he did marry his wife Coretta?
A:
On the lawn of her parents’ house.
8/
What Indian activist served as an inspiration for King’s advocacy of non-violent action?
A:
Mahatma Ghandi.
9/
And who introduced King to Ghandi’s ideas?
A:
King’s main advisor in the 1950s: Bayard Rustin.
10/ Although King never openly advocated support for any political party he did reveal how he
personally voted. Was that for the Republicans or the Democrats?
A:
Democrats.
11/ King thought it would be impossible to financially recompense by payment of unpaid wages
those who, and whose families, had been exploited as slaves. However, in 1965 he did
suggest a compensation sum to help close the wealth gap between black and white Americans.
What was that sum (to be paid over 10 years)?
A:
$50 billion.
12/ In what context did King make this suggestion?
A:
In an interview for ‘Playboy’ magazine.
13/ 10 months before Rosa Parks’ arrest, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a 15 year old
Claudette Colvin was similarly arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger.
Why did community leaders fail to lead a campaign in Colvin’s case?
A:
She was unmarried and pregnant and the leaders decided to wait for a case involving someone
more ‘respectable’.
14/ What was the organization formed in 1957 to harness the influence of black churches in nonviolent protest?
A:
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
26
15/ Who authorized the tapping of King’s phone in 1963?
A:
Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy.
16/ Who was in charge of the assaults in Birmingham (Alabama) on civil rights demonstrators with
dogs and high-pressure water jets, TV footage of which so shocked many US viewers and
helped to turn public opinion against white segregationists?
A:
Eugene “Bull” Connor, chief of the Police Department in Birmingham.
17/ Who said: “Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his
hand on you, send him to the cemetery”?
A:
Malcolm X.
18/ Who was the younger man, King or Malcolm X?
A:
King, who was born in 1929. Malcolm X was born in 1925.
19/ What was Malcolm X’s original birth name?
A:
Malcolm Little.
20/ What organization did Malcolm X join while in prison in the 1940s?
A: The Nation of Islam.
21/ How did Malcolm X later describe his behavior as a black separatist while in the Nation of
Islam?
A:
“I was a zombie... pointed in a certain direction and told to march.”
22/ Who said “A man who won’t die for something isn’t fit to live”?
A:
Martin Luther King Jr.
23/ Who did King describe as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world”?
A:
“My own government...”
24/ What was the full title of the ‘March on Washington’ of 1965?
A:
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
25/ How long (in duration) was King’s famous ‘I Have A Dream’ speech?
A:
17 minutes.
26/ How did the typewritten copy of the ‘I Have A Dream’ speech end up in the possession of the
first African-American coach of the University of Iowa’s basketball team, George Raveling?
A:
Raveling was stood near the podium and after the speech, on an impulse, asked if he could
have the text. King gave it to him.
27/ In what year did King write to his wife Coretta that “today capitalism has out-lived its
usefulness”?
A:
1952. (In a letter of July 18th.)
28/ In front of what famous monument did King give his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech?
A:
The Lincoln Memorial.
27
29/ Who said “Any people anywhere, being inclined, and having the power, have the right to rise
up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better”?
A:
Abraham Lincoln.
30/ What was it that King thought was “long, but it bends towards justice”?
A: “...the moral arc of the universe”.
31/ In prison in the 1940s, Malcolm X expressed admiration for a prisoner, John Bembry, who
could command “total respect” by use of what weapon?
A:
Words.
32/ What was Malcolm X’s early nickname in jail?
A: ‘Satan’, because of his initial dislike for religion.
33/ Why did Malcolm use the “X” in his name?
A:
Because it represented the loss of his African family name that he would never know.
34/ What boxing world champion was inspired to join the Nation of Islam by Malcolm X?
A: Muhammad Ali (who had previously been known as Cassius Clay). Ali subsequently left the
Nation of Islam, like Malcolm X.
35/ Who was the leader of the Nation of Islam during Malcolm X’s membership?
A:
Elijah Muhammad.
36/ What did Malcolm X describe as “chickens coming home to roost”?
A: The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
37/ What action did the Nation of Islam take after Malcolm X made these comments?
A:
They prohibited him from public speaking for 90 days.
38/ What was the title of a speech that Malcolm X gave in which he advised that African-Americans
use their votes wisely, but said that if the US authorities failed to grant African-Americans full
equality then they should be ready to take up arms?
A: “The Ballot or the Bullet”.
39/ King and Malcolm X only met once and only for a few moments. In what year?
A: 1964.
40/ After successes in the American South, King’s campaign for integrated and equal housing in
the Northern states met with less success. Protest marches through all-white working class
areas sometimes met with violent and riotous responses. What was thrown and hit King in the
face during one march for housing equalities in Chicago?
A:
A brick.
41/ What campaign did King and the SCLC set up in 1968 to combat issues of social injustice?
A:
The Poor People’s Campaign.
28
42/ What was the dominant criticism levelled at this campaign by other civil rights leaders?
A:
That the campaign was too broad and all-encompassing and its demands were too ambitious
to be realizable.
43/ In 1964 Malcolm X went to Mecca for the hajj. What is a hajj?
A:
A pilgrimage to Mecca obligatory once in a lifetime for any Muslim male physically and
financially able to go.
44/ What experience while on his hajj did Malcolm X describe as bringing him to believe that rather
than the separate development of blacks, Islam could be a means by which racial inequalities
could be overcome?
A: Seeing “all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans” gathering and meeting as
equals.
45/ In what words was Malcolm X characterized in the eulogy at his funeral?
A: “.... our shining black prince”.
46/ Ossie Davis, the actor who delivered this eulogy, appeared in what movie about Elvis and JFK
living out their old age in a nursing home while battling for the souls of their fellow residents
against an Ancient Egyptian mummy?
A:
‘Bubba Ho-Tep’.
47/ What did the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr precipitate?
A:
Nationwide urban riots.
48/ What did US President Lyndon Johnson declare for April 7th 1964?
A:
A national day of mourning for King.
49/ Who sang the hymn “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” at King’s funeral?
A:
His friend, the singer Mahalia Jackson.
50/ Where was James Earl Ray, the man successfully tried and imprisoned for King’s murder,
arrested?
A:
London’s Heathrow Airport.
29
GRANTLY MARSHALL
Actor, producer, founder of THE
AMERICAN DRAMA GROUP
EUROPE, begins his 36th season.
This is his 276th production.
GUNNAR FRED KUEHN
Canadian actor, director, and producer
has been with the company for 32
years. He is currently producing in
the Netherlands, Slovenia, Hungary,
Austria.
STEFANI HIDAJAT
author and student, has just completed
her Masters Degree at the
University of Münster. She joined ADGE in
the spring of 2013 and hopes to help
organize tours in her native Indonesia.
ANGELIKA MARTIN
has been involved in cultural mangement since the 1980’s. After completing
assignments with various city governments in Germany, she became
Freelance and has worked with ADG
for the past 23 seasons.
CHRISTIAN WERNER
After a successful career as a
computer engineer he begins his
second profession with ADGE.
A true meeting of the minds.
Martha Werner
Economic business correspondent
Martha Werner was lured out of
retirement by ADG and has enjoyed
every minute of her second profession.
FEDERICA PARISE Italian born and
Paris educated, she made contact with
THE AMERICAN DRAMA GROUP EUROPE
in January 2014 and has not been able
to escape the fantasy world of theatre.
.
LAURENT HARALD WOKER
Intern at the ADGE headquarters,
Laurent also takes care of our website
and general graphic designs.
30
THE AMERICAN DRAMA GROUP EUROPE-HISTORY
THE AMERICAN DRAMA GROUP EUROPE was formed by Ohio native Grantly Marshall
in 1978 in the city of Munich. It was linked in the beginning to the University of Munich
where the first performances were held. It expanded quickly to other theatres in Munich
and also began to give guest performances in other German cities. The expansion was
continued to include many countries in Europe and Asia.
The actors come from New York, London, and Paris (in 1985 French theatre
performances were added to our repertoire) where the productions are cast and directed.
The plays performed include American, British, and French classic and modern dramas
such as DEATH OF A SALESMAN, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, OUR TOWN,
WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, HAROLD AND
MAUDE, OF MICE AND MEN, EDUCATING RITA, KING LEAR, THE CANTERVILLE
GHOST, AMADEUS, SLEUTH, A CHRISTMAS CAROL, ANIMAL FARM, THE PICTURE
OF DORIAN GRAY, OLIVER TWIST, THE BEGGAR’S OPERA, THE IMPORTANCE OF
BEING EARNEST, THE GLASS MENAGERIE, LE PETIT PRINCE, RHINOCEROS,
HUIS CLOS, LE BOURGEOIS GENTILHOMME, ANTIGONE, FABLES, EXERCICES DE
STYLE, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, DAVID COPPERFIELD, THE GREAT GATSBY,
MOBY DICK, PYGMALION, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, MAUPASSANT, DR JEKYLL
AND MR HYDE, MACBETH, THE GHOSTS OF POE, DINNER FOR ONE, CANDIDE.
The goal of THE AMERICAN DRAMA GROUP EUROPE is to perform high quality
theatre in as many countries in the world as possible. Our 2014-2015 schedule includes
the following productions. THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MARTIN LUTHER KINGAMERICA-DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES, THE WAVE, FRANKENSTEIN, PETER PAN,
A CHRISTMAS CAROL, HAMLET, DINNER FOR ONE, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE,
LE PETIT PRINCE, GOYA-EN El AMOR; LA GUERRA Y EL SILENCIO.
In 1994 THE AMERICAN DRAMA GROUP EUROPE began touring European Castles.
CASTLE TOUR 2015 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE-Shakespeare - features many
illustrious
places
and
surprises. We are hoping to make it a pan-European tour. Wish us luck with the weather.
We hope that you will be able to attend and enjoy our performances and wish you all the
best
for the coming theatre season.
Grantly Marshall Munich, September 2014
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Presents
THEATRE SEASON 2014/2015
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MARTIN LUTHER KING – Paul Stebbings, Phil Smith
THE WAVE - Morton Rhue
LE PETIT PRINCE – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (French Language)
GOYA-EN EL AMOR; LA GUERRA Y EL SILENCIO – Stebbings/Smith (Spanish language)
FRANKENSTEIN-Mary Shelley
A CHRISTMAS CAROL - Charles Dickens (2 versions)
HAMLET - William Shakespeare
DINNER FOR ONE & BREAKFAST FOR THREE- Laurie Wylie & Richard Clodfelter
CASTLE TOUR 2015
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE – Shakespeare
THEAMERICANDRAMAGROUPEUROPE
TNT THEATRE
Koduke
Taddyforde Court
Exeter EX4 4AR
E mail: [email protected]
THEATRE EN ANGLAIS
Tel et fax: 33(0)1 55 02 37 87
http://theatre.anglais.free.fr
4 bis rue de Strasbourg, 92600
Asnières-Sur-Seine, France
ART PROMOTION
Feldstr. 21
D-85445 Oberding
Tel. 08122 / 4 26 66
Fax 08122 / 4 26 67
[email protected]
Grantly Marshall
Karolinenplatz 3
D-80333 München
Tel.: (49) 89 / 34 38 03
[email protected]
www.adg-europe.com
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