Katori Hall's The Mountaintop Aims for Broadway

Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop is coming to Broadway. The two-character play, which won great acclaim when it debuted in London last year, is aiming for a fall 2010 bow on the Great White Way.

The Mountaintop is set on the eve of the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. After delivering his famous “from the mountaintop” speech, King retires to his hotel room, where he encounters a hotel maid who is not what she seems to be.

Producers Jean Doumanian and Sonia Friedman are behind the Broadway mounting of the work, and Kenny Leon (soon to be represented on Broadway by the revival of August Wilson’s Fences) is in negotiations to direct. Hall, an American actress and playwright, grew up in Memphis.

The London production, which was nominated for a 2010 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play, starred David Harewood as Dr. King and Olivier Award nominee Lorraine Burroughs as the mysterious Camae. No casting, dates or venue has been announced for the Broadway production.