Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting

On Stage - Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting

Description:    

Written by Ed Schmidt, directed by Dennis Whithead Darling, and brought to you by Nike and Gene & Carol Katz, MR. RICKEY CALLS A MEETING has an extraordinary premise: it places four of the century’s most important African American figures in a hotel room on a rainy spring day in 1947, where they engage in a high-stakes battle over issues of lasting consequence. 

The men are: Joe Louis, still boxing’s heavyweight champion at 32, but overweight, exhausted and beset by money worries; aging tap dance legend Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, one of the black community’s most beloved figures but a man now in serious decline; the gifted actor andsinger Paul Robeson; and Jackie Robinson, the man who would integrate Major League baseball. 

All four—beautifully drawn in Hattiloo Theatre’s production of Ed Schmidt’s play— were men of depth and complexity, both triumphant and tragic figures. Each stands, as the play begins, in the midst of an acute, ongoing crisis. Their meeting has been called by another compelling figure—Brooklyn Dodger president and general manager Branch Rickey, the white businessman who engineered Robinson’s entree to the Major Leagues. 

History has portrayed Rickey as a hero. But Schmidt takes another look, not just at Rickey but at the mechanisms that brought Robinson into white baseball. In doing so, the playwright raises questions that have too seldom been asked — how patronizing were Rickey’s actions? At what cost, to other black players and to the African American community as a whole, did integration come?

When:             23 September - 16 October (Thurs., Fri., Sat. at 7:30p, Sun. at 3p)

                        (Pay-What-You-Want, Thursday, 29 September, 2016at 7:30p)

Cost:               Thursdays - Sunday - $28/general   $24/senior/student

                        Saturday matinee -   $22/general   $18/senior/student