Directed by James Dacre, the production will also feature actress Lorainne Burroughs, with designs by Libby Watson, lighting by Emma Chapman, sound by Richard Hammarton, video by Dick Straker for Mesmer, and voice and dialect by Charmain Hoare.

In the play, Martin Luther King retires to room 306 in the Lorraine Motel the night before his assassination. He has just delivered a speech to a Memphis church congregation during the sanitation workers' strike. When a mysterious young maid from the motel visits him, King is forced to confront his past and the future of his people. The play is described in press materials as "a haunting and inspiring portrait that looks beyond the legend to a man wracked by fears for the civil rights movement that becomes his historic legacy."

Harewood, who plays King, has played many of the great Shakespearean protagonists, including the title role in the National Theatre's 1997 production of Othello and Anthony to Vanessa Redgrave's Cleopatra in a production (also directed by Redgrave) that played New York's Public Theater in 1997. He has also starred in the National Theatre's production of His Dark Materials and Chichester Festival Theatre's production of The Misanthrope. His film and TV credits include lead roles in "Criminal Justice," "Robin Hood," "Mrs. Mandela," "Blood Diamond," "The Merchant of Venice," "Separate Lies," "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" and "Hawk."

Burroughs, who plays the maid, has performed on stage in Othello at Shakespeare's Globe, The War Next Door and Fabulation at the Tricycle, Three Sisters at Birmingham Rep and on tour, Anna and the Tropics at Hampstead Theatre and The Kindness of Strangers at Liverpool Everyman. Film and TV credits include "Hex," "Red Rose," "Spooks," "Wide Sargasso Sea," "All About George," "Casualty," "Down to Earth" and "Doctors."

Playwright Katori Hall is a writer and performer who hails from Memphis, TN. Her plays include Hoodoo Love, Remembrance, Hurt Village, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, The Mountaintop, The Hope Well, On the Chitlin' Circuit and Freedom Train. Her work has been presented at the Cherry Lane Theatre, World Financial Center, Lark Play Development Center, the Women's Project and the Classical Theatre of Harlem. Director James Dacre has directed new work by Dic Edwards, Lucy Thurber, Suzan-Lori Parks, Katori Hall, Bekah Brunstetter, Harrison Rivers, Laura Jacqmin, Josh Koenigsberg, James Nicholson, Nanna Mwaluko and three plays by Torben Betts.

To book tickets, contact the box office at 020 7978 7040 or visit www.theatre503.com. For more information on the play, visit www.themountaintop.co.uk.