Hattiloo’s 18th season includes ‘Carmen Jones,’ ‘The Lion King Jr.’
Muriel Smith, left, in the title role Carmen Jones, gives her hand to P. Jay Sidney, playing Mr. Higgins, the owner of the Meadowlawn Country Club, the setting for Act II, Scene I, in October 1943. The violinist is Everett Lee. "Carmen Jones" is the Broadway version of Bizet's opera. (AP File Photo)
With one play on stage and another left to go in Season 17, Memphis’ Hattiloo Theatre has sold out tickets during four of the season’s seven plays.
On Tuesday, March 5, the Black repertory theater released its Season 18 lineup.
It includes Disney’s “The Lion King Jr.,” Oscar Hammerstein II’s “Carmen Jones” and “A Motown Christmas.”
The new season features nine shows from July 26, 2024, to June 8, 2025.
“Season 18 marks a new chapter in our historic rise to our 20th anniversary,” Ekundayo Bandele, founder, said via press release.
The season features a classic, alongside several contemporary selections.
“Carmen Jones” is a 1943 Broadway musical set during World War II, based on the French opera “Carmen.” The 1954 film, starring Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge and Pearl Bailey, is based on the play.
One of the plays — “Coconut Cake” by Melba Beaty — will have its world premiere in April via the North Carolina Black Repertory Co. The play centers around four retirees who spend their time drinking coffee and playing chess at a McDonald’s restaurant.
It comes to Hattiloo in August.
The season also features “Paradise Blue,” the second play in Dominique Morisseau’s Detroit Project trilogy. “Paradise Blue” is set in a fictional 1940s jazz club in the city’s Black Bottom neighborhood.
Marcus Gardley’s “A Black Odyssey” reimagines Homer’s “Odyssey” in modern-day Harlem and follows soldier Ulysses Lincoln.
Keenan Scott II “Thoughts of a Colored Man” was one of seven shows by Black playwrights to debut on Broadway in 2021. It features the lives of seven Black men in Harlem.
The Seattle-set “The Boy Who Kissed the Sky” is inspired by the early life of Jimi Hendrix.
The season lineup is as follows:
- July 26 – Aug. 18, 2024: “Carmen Jones” by Oscar Hammerstein II
- Aug. 9 – Sept. 8, 2024: “Coconut Cake” written by Melda Beaty
- Sept. 13 – Oct. 6, 2024: “Paradise Blue” written by Dominique Morisseau
- October 8 – 27, 2024: Disney’s “The Lion King Jr.” based on the Broadway production directed by Julie Taymor
- Nov. 22 – Dec. 22, 2024: “A Motown Christmas” created and adapted by Nate Jacobs
- Jan. 24 – Feb. 16, 2025: “A Black Odyssey” written by Marcus Gardley
- Feb. 7 – March 9, 2025: “Thoughts of a Colored Man” by Keenan Scott II
- March 14 – April 6, 2025: “Chicken and Biscuits” written by Douglas Lyons
- May 16 – June 8, 2025: “The Boy Who Kissed The Sky” written by Idris Goodwin
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Hattiloo TheatreKambui Bomani
Kambui Bomani is the general assignment and breaking news reporter for The Daily Memphian. He is a graduate of Jackson State University’s multimedia journalism program and earned a master’s degree in digital journalism from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School. His work has been published in Pro Football Focus, The Southside Stand, HBCU Legends, FanSided and Wisconsin Sports Heroics.
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