Guthrie Theater

"Gavin Lawrence gives Hughes plenty of charisma"  ~Pioneer Press

"Lawrence’s performance of Hughes poems is reason enough to see this show. He really makes the poetry live!"  ~HowWasTheShow.com

Set in Harlem in 1953, on the eve of appearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on un-American Activities, Langston Hughes can’t sleep. So he begins to write a poem. Exposed, guilt-ridden and fearful of the coming day, he confesses how he intends to answer Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s accusations on being a Communist. As he tells the story of what he’s written and why, interrupted by flashes of inspiration, the poem begins to grow as a thing with a life of its own. Together, Hughes and his poem reveal a portrait of an artist faced with his fears and regrets before the greatest ordeal of his life. Don’t miss this moving, thought-provoking play, a fictional account, about the evolution of a poem by one of the greatest American literary figures of the 20th century.