Am back up and running after my site crashed this week with PART IV of my take on shows now open this fall onstage in greater Boston– again, arranged in order of how long they will run so you can plan your theater-going schedule!

Dominic Carter as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Kiera Prusmack as Camae/ Photo: Benjamin Rose Photography

THE MOUNTAINTOP presented by FRONT PORCH ARTS COLLECTIVE is a gripping, tragi-comic, surreal take on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final hours on this earth. He has spoken those prophetic words, “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” evincing his faith in the ultimate success of the civil rights movement, a movement he’s begun but may not finish. What follows is an imaginary encounter between two characters on the eve of the iconic civil rights leader’s assassination. Trailer Here!

On that stormy night, Dr. King is alone and exhausted in his Memphis motel room awaiting the return of his friend and civil rights colleague the Rev. Ralph Abernathy who’s bringing him a pack of Pall Malls. But the knock on his door heralds a beautiful chamber maid named “Camae” with hot coffee and a piece of whatever’s on her mind. What begins as friendly, funny conversation shifts into something deeper: love, life, civil rights …when suddenly well-timed thunderbolts shake him to his core, and mortality is in the air. We are beginning to understand that Dr. King is not the only one in the room on a mission.

Playwright Katori Hall has rooted us in a complex picture of a man eloquent and aspirational, but also flirtatious and flawed. The holes in his socks belong to someone who has gone the distance and stands on the precipice of destiny. This redemptive vision about the link between the human and the divine, suggests the arc of King’s legacy. Dominic Carter as King gives us the whole man, grounded in flesh and blood, yet propelled by a visionary spirit. Keira Prusmack as Camae almost steals his thunder, flawless as a sinewy femme fatale with the power to send him reeling through time and space. Under Maurice Emmanuel Parent’s meticulous direction we feel every heart pounding beat of this emotional and existential drama, riding its tonal shifts to an apocalyptic climax as these two characters in one small room–hold the world and history in their hands.  See THE MOUNTAINTOP at Suffolk University’s The Modern Theatre, 525 Washington Street in Boston through October 12!

Margaret Clark as Katie, and ranney as Paul/Photo: Jim Sabitus

Then head out to Concord, pick some apples, and stop by the Umbrella Arts Center for a quick but filling bite called THE COUNTER where intimacy, mortality, and the meaning of life are on the menu. The play by Meghan Kennedy stars Margaret Clark as Katie, who works the lunch counter, where “ranney” as Paul is always the first customer of the day. For the last two years, they’ve kept the talk pretty small until one morning Paul suggests they take it up a notch…

Suddenly secrets are spilled, emotions run high, life and death are in play. Every word, pregnant pause, and side-eyed glance held me; these performances are SO natural, I felt like a voyeur. Alex Lonati’s acute direction moved these characters around this single, authentically rendered space, bringing us closer to ever more intimate conversation. The play invites us to consider the drama each of us lives below the surface and what might happen if we risked not living it alone. An 11th hour, revelatory turn by Maureen Keiller kicked this up another notch! Much existential ground is covered in 70 minutes, no intermission. See THE COUNTER through 11/9!