This is the time of year that The St. Louis Black Repertory Company typically closes the curtain on their series of shows for the year with a grand-scale musical. For 2024, founder and Producing Director Ron Himes decided to go in a different direction.
“We are closing out the season with August in July,” Himes said.
August Wilson’s “King Hedley II” will round out Season 47 from June 19 – July 14 at The Edison Theatre. The play is the ninth in the late playwright’s famed 20th century cycle of plays that depict Black life in each decade.
“It is very different for us to be ending our season in mid-July – which in St. Louis is Muny time and Stages time, a big musical time,” Himes said.
“King Hedley II” is a hard hitting drama that revisits legacies and bloodlines from previous characters within Wilson’s cycle through the eyes of a man trying to make ends meet in 1980s Pittsburgh. Hidden in plain sight within the war on drugs was a war on Black people. Black men in particular are considered by many to be an enemy of the state and treated accordingly.
After serving a seven-year bid, King is set on rebuilding his life and breaking generational curses through business ownership. He doesn’t have access to the tools and resources one typically employs when building an American dream. So, he is forced to resort to means that might jeopardize his future.
Himes portrayed the title role in the Black Rep’s 2006 production. This go round, he is in the director’s chair. For him, consistently showcasing the Pulitzer Prize-winner’s work aligns with The Black Rep’s mission.
“That is what we have attempted to do throughout the years – to continue to tell important American stories by African American playwrights,” Himes said. “In this generation, no one has documented the African-American experience the way that he has.”
Through Wilson’s documentation has come unprecedented opportunity.
“Though his work has been produced in regional theaters all over the country and on Broadway, it has been in Black theatres all over the country where a new generation of young actors have cut their teeth on Wilson’s work,” said Himes.
Among them is Viola Davis. Before she earned her elite EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Awards) status and became a household name through countless film and television performances, she originated the role of Tonya in “King Hedley II.” The performance earned her a Tony Award. Her second Tony Award came by way of Wilson as well when she and co-star Denzel Washington earned awards for their respective leading roles in the Broadway revival of “Fences.” The film adaptation of “Fences” gave Davis her first Academy Award for her portrayal of Rose Maxon.
Davis and Washington are two examples of many – including the late Chadwick Boseman, Courtney B. Vance, Colman Domingo, Stephen McKinley Henderson to name a few –who have embodied characters written by Wilson on stage and screen.
And The Black Rep has become internationally renowned for their stagings of Wilson’s work. When “King Hedley II” opens this week, the company will be one production shy of completing the 20th century cycle twice.
“Audiences will really hopefully appreciate that there is an option to see an incredible play by one of America’s most profound playwrights,” Himes said. “We are counting on it being the alternative option to the standard summer fair.”
The Black Rep’s presentation of August Wilson’s “King Hedley II” will run June 19-July 14 at Washington University’s Edison Theatre, 6465 Forsyth Blvd. For additional information, visit www.theblackrep.org or call (314) 534-3807.
