A Soldier’s Play

First Preview: Dec 27, 2019

Opening Date: Dec 27, 2019

Closing Date: Mar 15, 2020

Running Time: 01:50

https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/get-tickets/2019-2020-season/a-soldiers-play/

Playing @

Todd Haimes Theatre

227 W 42nd St New York, NY 10036

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Under the direction of Governor Andrew Cuomo, Broadway shows in New York City will suspend all performances immediately in support of the health and well-being of the theatregoing public, as well as those who work in the theatre industry. Performances will commence the week of April 13, 2020.

1944. A black Sergeant is murdered on a Louisiana Army base, and one tenacious investigator must race against his white leadership to unravel the crime before they unravel him.

A hair-raising drama that reverberates with the “authentic and exciting pulse” (New York Times) of mystery, Charles Fuller's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece rockets onto Broadway for the first time, starring three-time Tony nominee David Alan Grier and Golden Globe nominee Blair Underwood.

“I think America needs to hear the newness and the freshness of this play.” - director Kenny Leon

Broadway Play - Drama

Age Guidance: 15

Show Notes: 1 Intermission

Performance Schedule:

TUESDAY thru SATURDAY @ 8 PM
WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY @ 2 PM
SUNDAY @ 3 PM

Director

Kenny Leon

Written by

Charles Fuller

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Reviews

It might be a pleasure to report that Charles Fuller’s A Soldier’s Play, which is set in 1943-44 and deals with “the madness of race in America,” has reached the point where the play falls into the category of treasured period piece. No such luck. The drama premiered at the Negro Ensemble Company in 1981 and was handed the Pulitzer Prize in 1982. The first-rate Roundabout Theatre Company revival, opening as the fourth (and final?) year of the Trump administration begins, is every bit as pertinent as its debut was then—perhaps, given the divisiveness now afflicting the country, even more so.

As directed by Kenny Leon in its first Broadway production, however, the play is sturdy instead of creaky: Like the bare wood of Derek McLane’s set, it gets the job done, and it provides a platform for powerful moments and performances. The steel-jawed Blair Underwood, sympathetic yet commanding, provides a stoic axis for the production; Davenport, often wearing sunglasses, keeps his cool, even when his rank unsettles his white colleagues and subordinates. (Jerry O’Connell, playing a conflicted white captain, looks like he’s about to burst a blood vessel throughout.) David Alan Grier is Underwood’s equal and opposite: He brings rage and pathos to the role of the cruel Waters, “split by the madness of race in America,” who is twisted with contempt for other black men—especially Southern ones—whom he considers an embarrassment to the race.

The last few years have seen an explosion of formally and thematically bold work by African American dramatists addressing race-related issues from stinging contemporary perspectives — playwrights like Dominique Morisseau, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Jeremy O. Harris, Robert O'Hara, Aleshea Harris and Antoinette Nwandu, just for starters. So the belated arrival on Broadway of Charles Fuller's 1982 Pulitzer Prize winner, A Soldier's Play, risks looking like a throwback to more old-fashioned, conventional drama. Yet in the hands of director Kenny Leon and a terrific ensemble, this period piece about corrosive self-loathing bred out of institutionalized racism remains powerful theater.

Accessibility:

Wheelchair Info

Designated, flexible wheelchair seating area behind the last row of the center orchestra and the last row of the mezzanine

Seating

Seats 740. Orchestra, 1st floor; Mezzanine, 2nd and 3rd Floor; 5th floor Penthouse lobby open to the public. 4th floor private. Lower lobby main public facilities and lounge.

Entrance

Primary entrance from street, through double doors into outer lobby with box office, through double doors into main lobby, through 2 sets of double doors (each 31") into Orchestra.

Box Office

227 West 42nd St between 7th and 8th Avenues. Hours: 10am - 8pm: Tuesday through Saturday. 10am - 6pm Sunday and Monday. The box office closes at 6pm on any evening with no performance.

Restroom

Accessible restrooms on Orchestra level only

Telephone

There is a secure cell phone charging station on the 5th floor, reachable by elevator. The station is complimentary to use but requires a credit card to “unlock” devices. The station is 69” high.