Angela Bassett, Common, Susan Kelechi Watson To Do Staged Reading of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ ‘Between the World and Me’ At Apollo TheaterPosted by Wilson Morales
March 28, 2018
The Apollo Theater will produce the world premiere theatrical staged reading of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s award-winning book, Between the World and Me, on its iconic Harlem stage. The reading will be conceived and directed by Apollo Executive Producer Kamilah Forbes in her first full season at the Apollo, and MacArthur “Genius” Jason Moran, who also composed new music for the production. Between the World and Me will have an exclusive two-night run at the Apollo on April 2 and April 3, 2018, culminating in a final one-night only performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on April 7th in Washington D.C.
The reading will feature live excerpts of the book performed by Angela Bassett (Black Panther, 9-1-1), Common (John Wick 2, Selma), Susan Kelechi Watson (This Is Us), Joe Morton (Scandal), Michelle Wilson (Sweat, A Raisin in the Sun), Pauletta Washington and Marc Bamuthi Joseph. Common, Angela Bassett and Michelle Wilson will appear on the first night of the two-day run on April 2 with Susan Kelechi Watson and Pauletta Washington making special appearances for the April 3 show.
Between the World and Me concludes the nonprofit theater’s season of expanded programming and enforces its commitment to celebrating African American arts and culture, supporting emerging and established artists, and serving as a cultural and civic resource for students, families, and the larger Harlem community.
Between the World and Me, which won a National Book Award in 2015 and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, will take its stage form as a series of excerpted monologues, performances, design projections, and musical interludes orchestrated by the Apollo’s creative team. The book explores issues of racism and violence in America, as well as the perception of what black male identity looked like during Coates’s young adult life and how it is perceived today.
“What initially inspired me to bring Between the World and Me to the Apollo stage was the concept of what literature looks like when performed,” said Kamilah Forbes, the Apollo Theater’s Executive Producer. “Reading Between the World and Me was a very raw, personal experience; Ta-Nehisi creates an undeniably bold conversation about the black body, and the Apollo, as a champion of its community, has opened its doors for generations to discussions like this. I wanted to take the feelings that the book inspires from the solitary act of reading and transform them into a collective experience, both for the audience and the performers.”
Between the World and Me, for which Coates initially drew inspiration from James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, is written as a first-person letter from Coates to his teenage son. The author draws on his youth in Baltimore to bring his son into a critical conversation about America’s wrenching history and relationship with racism and violence against black people. The urgency of communicating these topics was initially sparked by a 2013 meeting with President Obama, during which Coates debated the level to which the President’s policies sufficiently addressed racial disparities. Like Coates’s letter, the production will be divided into three parts: Coates’s experiences as a young man in Baltimore, including his pivotal five years attending Howard University; his life after the birth of his son; and a meeting with Mable Jones, the mother of late Prince Jones Jr., who was the fatal victim of a police shooting in 2000.
“The Apollo has a historic tradition of providing the community, specifically the black community, with a powerful platform to share conversations of struggle, and pride through arts and culture,” said Ta-Nehisi Coates. “Watching Between the World and Me come alive on this iconic stage is incredibly exciting and gratifying.”
Forbes and Moran will encourage the actors and artists taking part in the production to interpret Coates’s powerful narrative voice, knitting together individual reactions and personal connections to reimagine Between the World and Me as a theatrical piece. The stage interpretation of the book is meant to act as a raw dialogue, similar to the one Coates has with his son in the text. These performances will be set against deliberately designed projections, a visual representation of Coates’s writing, and will be accompanied by Moran’s captivating score.
“I feel honored to be able to interpret what is one of the most important pieces of contemporary literature on the Apollo stage,” said Jason Moran, Kennedy Center Artistic Director of Jazz. “Ta-Nehisi explores critical black American musical influences, including 90s hip-hop legends such as Nas, Black Thought, and the Wu-Tang Clan, as a part of the larger black male identity in Between the World and Me, and it was very important for me to be able to represent and translate them as part of this narrative while also remaining true to the overall voice of the book.”
Like Moran, Forbes was deeply affected by Between the World and Me, and her connection to the story is exceptionally personal. She and Coates were both students at Howard University, where they met.
