A series of six popular titles by Black playwrights are now available to stream as audio plays for free, including Katori Hall's The Mountaintop, Lydia Diamond's Stick Fly, and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage's Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine.
The recordings, all performed in front of a live audience, were released by L.A. Theatre Works to promote Black voices in the arts.
The Mountaintop stars Larry Powell (The Christians at Playwrights Horizons) and How to Get Away With Murder's Aja Naomi King. Hall's play depicts a fictionalized account of Dr. Martin Luther King's final hours at the Lorraine Motel.
Stick Fly, seen on Broadway in 2011 a few blocks away from The Mountaintop, follows an upper-class African American family wrestling with parental expectations, sibling rivalry, and issues of class and race during a vacation on Martha's Vineyard. The audio play stars Justine Bateman, Dulé Hill, Tinashe Kajese, Terrell Tilford, and more.
Fabulation is Nottage’s satire about a successful African-American publicist named Undine, played by Charlayne Woodard, who stumbles down the social ladder after her husband steals her hard-earned fortune.
Rounding out the slate of programming are A Huey P. Newton Story, written, directed, and performed by Roger Guenveur Smith; The Night Watcher, written and performed by Charlayne Woodard; and Ceremonies in Dark Old Men by Lonne Elder III.
All six titles are are available to stream for free through August 30 at LATW.org.
