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Friday, Nov. 14

All the Way

Seattle playwright Robert Schenkkan’s acclaimed drama about LBJ’s passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 earned Tony Awards for Best Drama and its star, Breaking Bad ’s Bryan Cranston, after reaching Broadway last year. Now Seattle audiences can finally see the work, with Jack Willis assuming the title role. (Kenajuan Bentley plays MLK, who lobbies for speedier progress on civil rights; Richard Elmore potrays J. Edgar Hoover—and we know which side he’s on.) In this, the 50th-anniversary year of the Civil Rights Act, with an African-American president in the White House, All the Way is automatically the biggest stage event of the season.

Not only is All the Way historical, it’s painfully topical: A half-century’s seeming progress toward racial equality has now stumbled in ways that LBJ partly anticipated. The South has flipped to solid Republican (his prediction), and its ossified white leaders (abetted by FOX News) have thwarted, belittled, and demonized the president as an ineffectual other. Voter-ID laws and restricted voting hours are resurgent in red states. GOP-controlled state legislatures have drawn electoral maps that herd blacks into homogenous, gerrymandered districts that dilute their voice in Congress. No surprise that many forums and discussions, at the Rep and elsewhere, are scheduled in the coming weeks.

Bill Rauch directs both this play and Schenkkan’s new companion piece about LBJ’s struggles from 1965–68 (chiefly Vietnam), The Great Society, which opens December 5 and alternates withAll the Way (sharing the same cast) through January 4. Seattle Repertory Theatre, 155 Mercer St. (Seattle Center), 443-2224, seattlerep.org. $17–$150. 7:30 p.m. BRIAN MILLER

A second Washington Humanities THINK AND DRINK event will be held tomorrow night, November 12, at the Royal Room, 5000 Rainier Ave S, Seattle.

Robert Schenkkan will be part of this free event tonight. Should be interesting. Stop by, have a drink and join the conversation!

7:00-8:30 PM tonight, November 11, 2014. Humanities Washington Think and Drink Conversation Free event featuring lively, moderated conversations concentrated on the history and legacy of the civil rights, and voting rights acts, and LBJ’s role in having them signed into law as well a exploring the role of theatre in exploring this history, and relating it to the present. moderated by Tonya Mosely, historian Quintard Taylor. (Sarah Meals- SRT Representative) Naked City Brewery & Taphouse, 8564 Greenwood Ave N, Seattle

CRITICAL THINKING WITH STORY AS A CATALYST: RACE, PLACE & CULTURE http://www.humanities.org/

Robert Schenkkan was the featured Lowe Speaker at the Claremont-McKenna College Marion Minor Cook Atheneum on November 4, 2014. “Writing the 1960’s in Drama.”

Robert Schenkkan’s One-on-One segment will air on Wednesday, November 26 at 12:30 AM on WNET (PBS – Thirteen in NYC)and 7:00 PM on NJTV.

Robert Schenkkan asks what we can—and should—learn from the tumultuous presidency of LBJ.

A still, midsummer heat rests like a woolen blanket on the brick courtyard outside this Oregon theatre. On stage, however, a storm is brewing: Furious African-Americans riot in the streets, politicians haggle over health care and the death toll for an unpopular war is rising. A once high-minded President is struggling toward progress against the crush of political pressure. The scene takes place in 1965, but it could be 2014. To read more, click here.

Here is the brand new 60 second teaser for ALL THE WAY and THE GREAT SOCIETY at the Seattle Rep Theater. ALL THE WAY opens November 19th and THE GREAT SOCIETY opens December 10th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHk3B3oQ8N

 

Tonight, October 22,  at the Harvard Kennedy School Carr Center for Human Rights. A.R.T. of Human Rights 7pm – 9pm American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.), Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St, Cambridge, MA

“All the Way?: The Unfinished Struggle for Civil Rights”

Timothy Patrick McCarthy in conversation with Robert Schenkkan, Tony Award-winning playwright, All the Way; and Professor Lani Guinier, Harvard Law School , Joseph Peniel, Tufts Professor of Black Power Studies, and Lisa Coleman, Chief Diversity Officer Harvard University.

ZACH Theatre has announced the newest addition to its 2014-15 Season – The 2014 Tony Award winner for Best Play- ALL THE WAY. Based on Lyndon Baines Johnson’s prolific first year as President. To read more, click here.

On the first day of single ticket sales for ALL THE WAY and THE GREAT SOCIETY at the Seattle Repertory Theater, all box office records were broken for tickets sold in one day.