CHICAGO--A 1995 premiere by Denver Center Theatre Company and a finalist in the American Theatre Critics Association's Best Play award, Keith Glover's Coming of the Hurricane opens June 1 in a Midwest premiere by Organic Touchstone Company. The play underlines the many small battles for freedom and dignity fought by former slaves after the Civil War. Written by the author of Thunder Knocking on The Door, which featured a battle between two blues performers, the topical drama focuses on another death-defying match-up. The bout pits Crixus, a boxer famed for fights-to-the-death during slavery, against a "great white hope." Unready for freedom and struggling to provide for his pregnant wife Kazarah, Crixus reluctantly returns to the boxing ring for a climactic fight with John "The Hurricane" Blaine, a thug who embodies the South's unhealed hatred.

Jonathan Wilson (who recently staged Pegasus Players' Dead of Night: The Execution of Fred Hampton) directs Cedric Young as Crixus, Nambi E. Kelley as Kazarah and Lawrence Woshner as his opponent. For information call 312-751-5557.

-- By Lawrence Bommer
Chicago Correspondent