On August 27, 2013, at the historic Metropolitan A.M.E. Church in Washington, D.C. , THE MARCH Civil Rights Opera Project will stage a free mass meeting performance called “Prelude to a Dream” to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington.
“Prelude to a Dream” is a dramatization of the tension and uncertainty during the final preparations for the march and the stories of ordinary Americans who planned to attend the march.
THE MARCH: A Civil Rights Opera is a new American opera project dramatizing the events surrounding the 1963 March on Washington. THE MARCH is being developed in Chicago and will premiere there in the fall of 2014, followed by performances in Washington, D.C. and Atlanta.
These mass meetings are based on events during summer of 1963. They feature freedom songs (solos & audience participation), speeches, testimonies & character driven drama, all happening around the audience. Prelude to a Dream is the fourth installment of these mass meetings.
Prelude to a Dream characters include: Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, Courland Cox (SNCC), Joyce Ladner (SNCC), Clarence Mitchell (NAACP), Gloria Richardson, Andrew Young (SCLC), Anna Hedgeman, a Justice Department official, an aide to Archbishop Patrick O’Boyle, an aide to Senator Strom Thurmond, a captain in the American Nazi Party and a host of other civil rights figures and individual march attendees.
After the mass meeting performance, librettist Alan Marshall and composer D.S. Jones will give a preview of the grand finale of THE MARCH: A Civil Rights Opera. This Lincoln Memorial scene will include several opera singers portraying characters who delivered speeches at the 1963 march including A. Philip Randolph, John Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr. and Roy Wilkins. The chorus for this scene will be comprised of voices from Metropolitan A.M.E. Church choirs.
The event will be held Tuesday August 27, 2013 at 7:00 p.m. at Metropolitan A.M.E. Church – 1518 M Street NW Washington, D.C. 20005
Admission is free, but a pre-registration Ticket is required for entry. To register visit https://civilrightsopera.ticketleap.com/preludeindc/
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