Friedman's partner in the enterprise, Jean Doumanian, now hustling Superior Donuts at the Music Box 'til Jan. 3, takes a bow for getting the ball rolling: "I read it, and I sent Sonia to see it at Theatre 503. She called me right after and said, 'Let's do it.' So we moved it to the West End, because that was the deal, and now…"

James Dacre directed the London production, but the producers have not decided on a Broadway director. "It depends on who we get to be in it," Doumanian relays.

The play is set in Room 306 of Memphis' Lorraine Motel on the rainy evening of April 3, 1968. A chambermaid has just answered a call for coffee from Martin Luther King Jr., fresh "From the Mountaintop" of his Mason Temple address and hours away from his own death. The drama that follows is playwright Hall's imagining of getting through that last night. (Perhaps not unrelated to this particular work is the fact that the author's mother grew up only one block from the Lorraine Motel.)

"There's an incredible twist to it," producer Doumanian couldn't help saying.

David Harewood, who will soon star as Nelson Mandela in a BBC drama, appeared in London as the doomed King, and Lorraine Burroughs played the housemaid.

— Harry Haun