Michael Anthony Tatmon gets one night at Theatre Row as Justice Thurgood Marshall. Thurgood, the solo play by George Stevens Jr., is part of the United Solo Theatre Festival on Wednesday, November 4, at 7pm, and that date launches the Thurgood Equal Justice Tour.
It is a single 90-minute performance in the Theatre Row complex at 410 West 42nd Street. Tickets are $65. Prodan Dimov directs.
The play follows Marshall from his early fights against segregation as a young lawyer to the landmark cases he won before the Supreme Court, where he would later sit as a justice. One actor carries the whole of it.
Tatmon founded the company behind the show, In Living Colored, after moving to Fort Collins, Colorado, in 2018, and Thurgood was the play he wanted to stage from the start. The company first took it into middle school and high school classrooms there, until the pandemic paused production. The New York date now starts a tour run under a nonpartisan program called the Thurgood Initiative, which pairs performances with workshops, post-show discussions and civic events at schools, universities, theaters and community organizations.
“Justice is not simply a chapter in our history—it is a responsibility we inherit,” Tatmon said.
His stage credits include the title roles in Othello and Faust, Blind Tom in Hush: Composing Blind Tom, Sam in Athol Fugard’s Master Harold...and the Boys and Troy Maxson in August Wilson’s Fences. He was nominated for best actor at the Magnolia Theatre Festival in Shanghai for The Old Man in Eugene Ionesco’s The Chairs.
Zhanna Gurvich designs the set and Jeremy Stein is stage manager. Jessica Lynn Johnson is producer and solo-theater consultant; she also directed 6 Out of 10, another one-night United Solo booking at Theatre Row this fall.
Before New York, Tatmon performs the play on the main stage at Santa Monica Playhouse on Sunday, October 18, at 2:30pm, as part of a free fringe festival there.
Tickets for the November 4 performance are available through United Solo, by phone on (212) 714-2442, or in person at the Theatre Row box office, open Tuesday to Sunday from noon to 5pm.
