A gunshot is heard, followed by rapid footsteps and frantic yelling. It is April 4, 1968, and the hero of the civil rights movement is lying on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis.
Actor, writer, and historian Barry Scott mesmerizes audiences with his one-man play, a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
He’ll perform the show at the Townsend Center for Performing Arts on Thursday, Feb. 9. Tickets are $15 for adults, $14 for seniors and military, and $8 for children.
Visit or call the Townsend Center Box Office at Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. or one hour before show time. Tickets may also be purchased online at www.townsendcenter.org.
A rich soundtrack of piano and strings, which swells and then falls into the background, synchronized to the dynamics of Scott’s performance. The play runs about 75 minutes in a single act with no intermission. Scott has various costumes to accompany his portrayals of preachers, civil rights workers, Alabama cops, Klansmen, and others of the era. Rear-screen projections display well-known archival images of King, the movement, the marches for equality, the police brutality and some of those who died for the cause including the four young black girls who perished in the 1963 bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church. Scott delivers excerpts of King’s eulogy on the “democracy of death” over these pictures culminating this thoroughly haunting segment.
More than anything, Scott asks his audience to listen and observe, to reflect on what’s historical. He asks the audience to honestly feel, to search—deeply within —and discover what it means to them in the here and now.
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