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A Soldier’s Play

First Preview: Dec 27, 2019
Opening Date: Dec 27, 2019
Closing Date: Mar 15, 2020
Running Time: 01:50
A Soldier’s Play

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Playing @
Todd Haimes Theatre
227 W 42nd St, New York, NY 10036
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 
BroadwayPlay - Drama
Show Notes: 1 Intermission
Age Guidance: 15

Performance Schedule

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


Written By
  • Charles Fuller

Director
  • Kenny Leon

TDF Tickets Offers:

Listed at

Never

Full-price tickets:

$59.00 - $299.00

Video

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.
  • 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.

Accessibility

  • Wheelchair Info

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

    Accessible restrooms are located on the lobby level (Level 1) and in the Penthouse Lobby (Level 5).
  • Assisted Listening System

    Assisted listening devices available: infrared headsets free at coatcheck. A photo ID is required to check out a headset.
  • Elevator/Escalator

    Elevators are available to all levels of the theatre.
  • Folding Armrests

    Six (6) seats are available with folding armrests.
  • Water Fountain

    Several accessible water fountains are located throughout the theatre, all reachable by elevator.

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