The cast of the developmental reading, which is not open to the public, includes playwright Washington as Bayard Rustin, Christopher J. Hanke as Davis Platt Jr., Gerard Joseph as Martin Luther King Jr., Roger Robinson as A. Philip Randolph and Tracie Thoms as Miriam Caldwell. Tony winner Phylicia Rashad directs. "Set in the sweltering political and racial heat of 1963," press notes state, "trade unionist A. Philip Randolph, calls upon his star pupil, Bayard Rustin, to mastermind 'a tribute to the ancestors' exactly one hundred years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation."
In other Playhouse news, the world premiere of Daniel Beaty's The Tallest Tree in the Forest, a new work focusing on the life of world-renowned African-American artist and activist Paul Robeson, will be presented in October.
