Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II will star this fall in the Broadway revival of Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book film “Topdog/Underdog.”
The play, first staged on Broadway 2002 later an Off Broadway run at the Public Theatre, is a portrait of two brothers: One named Lincoln (Hawkins), impersonating Abraham Lincoln, and the other, named Booth (Abdul-Mateen), aspiring to play a three-card game like the way my brother used to be. .
In 2018, The New York Times proclaimed “The Top/Underrated One” the best American play of the past 25 years. Explaining that choice, critic Ben Brantley wrote that the play “uses the sublime theatrical art of deception to convey the dangers of impersonation in a society where race is a show and prison.”
Abdul-Mateen, 35, is known for his work on the HBO series “The guard“And he’s been appearing in movies lately.”Ambulance“”Matrix Recovery” and “Candy man. ” “Topdog/Underdog” will be his first Broadway play.
The original Broadway production starred Jeffrey Wright and Yasiin Bey, who was known as Mos Def at the time.
This 20th-anniversary revival, scheduled to run for 16 weeks, will begin previews September 27 and open October 20 at the John Golden Theater. It will be directed by Kenny Leon, who won a Tony Award in 2014 for directing the revival of “A Raisin in the Sun.” The producers are David Stone, the main producer of “Wicked”, as well as LaChanzeRashad V. Chambers, Marc Platt, Debra Martin Chase and the Shubert Foundation.
This season is shaping up to be a big one for Parks. In addition to the Broadway revival of “Topdog/Underdog,” Public Theater on Tuesdays said it would hold productions on two new works she wrote: “The Plays in the Year of the Plague,” a series of plays that Parks wrote during the early part of the pandemic, and “The Harder They Come.” a musical adaptation of the 1972 film, with a book by Parks and a soundtrack including songs by Jimmy Cliff.
