Theatre Legend Woodie King, Jr. Reflects on His Martin Luther King Theatrical Connection

By Fern Gillespie

Reflecting on this year’s symbolic Martin Luther King Day, Our Time Press reached out legendary Tony and Obie winning theatre producer and director Woodie King Jr. As the founder of Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre (NFT) and the National Black Touring Circuit, King had brought plays about historic Black figures to audiences in New York City and around the country. Although he recently retired from NFT, King still directs shows and the former college professor remains the sage of Black theatre.

In 1981, King became friends with actress Yolanda King, Martin Luther King’s daughter. The drama “Death of a Prophet,” a television film, written and directed by Woodie King Jr., starred Morgan Freeman as Malcolm X and Yolanda King as Betty Shabazz. “Yolanda was a good actress. I thought it would be interesting. That’s why I cast her and Morgan Freeman. They worked very well together,” he recalled. The film also features Amiri Baraka and Ossie Davis and is available on Amazon Prime.

“I talked with Yolanda about things that I had read about her father. We were also trying to figure out our ancestry. Could it any way fit into my ancestry, because I’m a King too,” he mused. “But, we couldn’t figure out.”

“Making the film was very traumatic,” said King. “Because in the end of the film, I had Malcolm X assassinated. Her father had been assassinated. So, it was very hard for her to take that.”

“Yolanda remembered in the last days, her father was very tired. In the beginning he was energetic,” he said. “I’m from Detroit, and by the time Dr. King came to Detroit at Cobo Hall for all those people, I could see he was tired. I was about 16 years old at that time and Dr. King had been around a while. He was so well respected at that time.”

By 1985, Woodie King produced the touring company of ”I Have a Dream” a musical about Martin Luther King. It still is being performed in theatres and schools across the U.S. The musical weaves Dr. King’s speeches, sermons and other writings along with musical numbers into a music-drama on his life from the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycotts to his assassination. “It started at the Mark Taper Theater in Los Angeles and toured for two years straight,” said King. “It was in Bermuda and went to about 10 places. Schools wanted to do it. It was so good.”

New Federal Theatre has a history of producing very serious plays about African American heroes. “We did plays on African Americans who are not heroes to white people but were heroes to Black people. We did some plays where they were heroes to both. Martin Luther King was a hero to both,” King told Our Time Press.

In 1987, Woodie King produced “The Meeting,” at NFT. It was playwright Jeff Stetson’s story of an imagined meeting of Dr. King and Malcolm X in a Harlem hotel on Valentine’s Day 1965. It takes place a week before Malcolm X was assassinated. They discuss Dr. King’s peaceful nonviolence, as opposed to the separatism advocated by Malcolm X.  “My reaction immediately was that I wanted to do the play. I respected the author and the research that he had put into it. It was well written,” said King. “It’s been performed all over the country. I remember Dick Anthony Williams as Malcolm X and Taurean Blacque was Malcolm X’s bodyguard and Felton Perry was Dr. King.”

Creating plays on Black historical figures for King was developed when he came to New York City in the 1960s. “I came to New York when the poverty art programs began. These programs at Harlem, the Lower Eastside and Brooklyn were just getting started. They needed material. They needed something that people knew about,” said King. “Plays about African American heroes were very, very popular.”

Recently, King returned to directing Black historical dramas at NFT. In 2023, he directed Wesley Brown’s “Telling Tales Out of School” about four leading women of the Harlem Renaissance: Jessie Fauset, Nancy Cunard, Nella Larsen and Zora Neale Hurston reconnecting after a memorial service for Alain Locke, architect of the Harlem Renaissance.

Black historical figures are being celebrated this February at Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theater’s “Ancestral Voices Solo Festival” at the WP Theater from February 6 – March 2. It features a different solo performance of works honoring the life and legacy of Paul Robeson, Augusta Savage, Martin Luther King Jr., and Shirley Chisholm.

Actor-playwright Michael Green will perform “39 Steps Toward Freedom,” inspired by the final days of Dr. King’s life where he reflects on his 39 years of social justice and family. “My motivation for writing this play so that people can take him off the pedestal where he never wanted to be and allow him to be a man,” said Green. “A man with much more to offer America than just a dream.”

“Black people, who through their actions, paved the way to make progress. It is our legacy,” said Elizabeth Van Dyke, Artistic Director, New Federal Theatre. “Our ancestral voices are still resounding today.”

Contact NFT for more information at newfederaltheatre.com