Hattiloo Season 18
(2024-2025)
This project is being supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number SLFRP5534 awarded to the State of Tennessee by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
A Motown Christmas
Created & adapted by Nate Jacobs
Directed by Patricia Smith
November 22 – December 22, 2024
REGIONAL PREMIERE
Celebrate the most wonderful time of the year with this exciting, family-fun Christmas musical. All your holiday favorites from such celebrities as Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, and The Jackson 5 will be performed with that dazzling Westcoast signature style coupled with a soulful Motown flair. In keeping with our long tradition of presenting electrifying musicals and world premieres, this holiday celebration promises to the most memorable Christmas treat of the season!
TICKETS ON SALE: October 22, 2024
Black Odyssey
Written by Marcus Gardley
Co-directed by Ekundayo Bandele & Maya Robinson
January 24 – February 16, 2025
Obie-winning playwright Marcus Gardley blends classic mythology, African American history, and modern theatricality to create the poetic black odyssey. This vibrant reimagining of the Odysseus saga is set in modern-day Harlem, telling the epic tale of Ulysses Lincoln, a soldier facing the most daunting of voyages to reunite with his family. While fate may seem in control of Ulysses’ destiny, his ancestors and their buried history will help guide his journey home.
TICKETS ON SALE: December 17, 2024
Thoughts of a Colored Man
Keenan Scott II
Directed by Lawrence Blackwell
March 14 – April 6, 2025
Dawn breaks in Brooklyn, and seven black men rise to meet the day. One of them, a finance director, leaves his luxurious condo to jog around their rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, just as a grocery-store clerk is starting another soul-crushing shift. At the bus stop, two best friends debate the intricacies of modern dating, while a basketball coach at the youth center grapples with his unrealized potential. At the hospital, a teacher and his father-in-law welcome a new life. And at the barbershop, the whole group meets for cuts and conversation as sparks fly over questions of identity and community. Through the storytelling style of SLAM Narrative, THOUGHTS OF A COLORED MAN celebrates the hopes, ambitions, joys, and triumphs of black men in a world that often refuses to hear them.
TICKETS ON SALE: February 18, 2025
The Boy Who Kissed the Sky
Written Idris Goodwin
Directed & Choreographed by Jade Lambert Smith
Music by Divinity Roxx and Eugene H. Russell IV
May 16 – June 8, 2025
REGIONAL PREMIERE
Set in the heart of Seattle to the rhythms that shaped a generation, The Boy Who Kissed the Sky is inspired by the early life and influences of musical icon Jimi Hendrix. In the early era of rock n roll music, we see a young Black boy conjure his creativity as a budding guitarist. Guided by the spirit of music itself, the Boy learns to find harmony inside the challenging noises of his life. Although more mythology than biography, The Boy Who Kissed the Sky is a celebration of our muses and the forces that pull us to be who we are. Told with vibrant music and daring imagination, this new family musical inspires us to dream big when it matters most.
TICKETS ON SALE: April 15, 2025
Previous Plays
Hattiloo Youth Theatre presents
Disney’s The Lion King Jr.
Music and Lyrics by Tim Rice and Elton John
Additional Music and Lyrics by Will Van Dyke Lebo M, Mark Mancina, Jay Rifkin
Book by Roger Allers & Irene Mecchi
Based on the Broadway production directed by Julie Taymor
October 18 – 27, 2024
A lively stage adaptation of the Academy Award-winning 1994 Disney film, The Lion King is the story of a young lion prince living in the flourishing African Pride Lands.
When an unthinkable tragedy, orchestrated by Simba’s wicked uncle, Scar, takes his father’s life, Simba flees the Pride Lands, leaving his loss and the life he knew behind. Eventually companioned by two hilarious and unlikely friends, Simba starts anew. But when weight of responsibility and a desperate plea from the now ravaged Pride Lands come to find the adult prince, Simba must take on a formidable enemy, and fulfill his destiny to be king.
TICKETS ON SALE: September 17, 2024
Carmen Jones
By Oscar Hammerstein II
Based on Meilhac and Halevys adapation of Prosper Mérimée’s Carmen
Music by Georges Bizet
Directed & choreographed by Patdro Harris
Vocal direction by Claudette Lehew
Musical direction by Ashley Davis
July 26 – August 18, 2024
In a Southern town during World War II, an army corporal named Joe is stationed near a parachute factory where Carmen Jones is employed. Fickle and flirtatious, Carmen manages to steal Joe away from his fiancée, and the army as well, and they run off to Chicago together. But Carmen loses interest in Joe when she meets and successfully woos Husky Miller, a prize fighter on his way to the top. Mad with jealousy, Joe waits for Carmen outside the stadium the night of Husky’s big fight to make a last desperate plea for her love. When she denies him resolutely, he stabs her to death in a rage of passion, to the eerie accompaniment of the crowd inside the stadium cheering Husky’s victory.
Winner! Three 1992 Olivier Awards, including Best Musical
Winner! Four 2019 Lucille Lortel Awards, including Outstanding Revival
Nominee: Four 2019 Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Revival of a Musical
TICKETS ON SALE: June 25, 2024
Coconut Cake
Written by Melda Beaty
Directed by Erma Elzy
August 9 – September 8, 2024
Black Box Theatre
Regional Premier
For some, there’s nothing better than retirement, but when Eddie Lee’s wife, Iris, joins him in retirement, the truth about his “ladies’ man” ways resurfaces. To avoid her, Eddie retreats to the sanctuary of McDonald’s, where coffee refills are free and the rest of his retired friends, with marital problems of their own, wait faithfully for him. When a mystery woman moves in the abandoned house down the street, with her Creole’ wiles, melt in your mouth coconut cake, and medicine cabinet secrets, Eddie is not the only one who pays her a visit; a visit that threatens to change all their lives forever.
TICKETS ON SALE: July 2, 2024
Paradise Blue
Written Dominique Morisseau
Directed by Garry Yates
September 13 – October 6, 2024
REGIONAL PREMIERE
Blue, a gifted trumpeter, contemplates selling his once-vibrant jazz club in Detroit’s Blackbottom neighborhood to shake free the demons of his past and better his life. But where does that leave his devoted Pumpkin, who has dreams of her own? And what does it mean for the club’s resident bebop band? When a mysterious woman with a walk that drives men mad comes to town with her own plans, everyone’s world is turned upside down. This dynamic and musically infused drama shines light on the challenges of building a better future on the foundation of what our predecessors have left us.
