The
Mountaintop
by Katori hall

Produced by Oakland Theater Project
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CAST

King William Thomas Hodgson

Camae Sam Jackson

Concept

Set within the imagined space of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s tomb—an idea proposed by co-director Michael Socrates Moran—this production of Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop reconsiders Dr. King’s final night through intimacy rather than iconography. The tomb becomes a liminal threshold, a place between life and legacy where myth gives way to humanity.

Staged in a black box theatre, the audience is brought into close proximity with King, encountering him not as a monument, but as a man—brilliant, burdened, flawed, and afraid. Across from him is Camae, the irreverent, smoking, drinking, cussing angel who arrives as both guide and provocateur, challenging King to confront the cost of his calling before escorting him to the other side.

By collapsing the distance between audience and subject, this production invites us to witness a private reckoning within a sacred space. The Mountaintop becomes not a retelling of history, but an intimate meditation on legacy, humanity, and what it truly means to remember Dr. King.