THE DREAM TEAM

A compelling new play
reminds us that history
is rarely made alone

Rashun Carter as Martin Luther King Jr. and Destan Owens as Bayard Rustin in Berkshire Theatre Group’s The American Five at The Unicorn Theatre

The American Five, by Chess Jakobs, offers a convincing and absorbing portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr.’s lesser-known inner circle in the months and hours leading up to the famed 1963 March on Washington and King’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. The Berkshire Theatre Group production, directed by Gerry McIntyre, is the regional premiere of Jakobs’ debut play, commissioned by Ford’s Theatre as part of its Expanding the Canon Initiative and winner of the Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play.

Brett Diggs, Destan Owens, Rashun Carter, Sydney Elisabeth, and Harry Smith

The show opens in the wee hours of August 28, 1963, where King (Rashun Carter) continues to struggle with the speech he will give later that day, despite the insistence of Coretta Scott King (Sydney Elisabeth), Bayard Rustin (Destan Owens), and Clarence Jones (Brett Diggs) that, after three months of preparation, the speech is ready and they all need some rest. Coretta, of course, is King’s wife and helpmeet; Rustin, a lifelong advocate for nonviolent social change, is the primary architect of the March on Washington; Jones is King’s legal counsel, speechwriter, and trusted advisor. Despite the assurances of his close circle, King is not satisfied. He knows the speech is good, but something about it isn’t working for him.

Sydney Elisabeth

From this scene, we go back in time to Boston in 1952 when Martin met Coretta and famously decided she had all the qualities he was looking for in a wife—despite the fact that, as Coretta pointed out, he hardly knew her.

Later scenes depict the influence of these characters on Martin’s formation, including a 1956 conversation in which Rustin convinces King to give up his gun (who knew the American most closely identified with nonviolence would need such convincing?), but soon after, in a depiction of the bombing of King’s house while Coretta and infant Yolanda are inside, we understand the gravity of that decision. Following his understandably semi-hysterical reaction to the threat against his family, Coretta calms him, and King steps outside to urge his supporters and followers, some of whom are armed, not to retaliate with violence.

Sydney Elisabeth, Rashun Carter, Brett Diggs, Destan Owens and Harry Smith

One of the primary fundraisers supporting the Montgomery Bus Boycott (not explicitly identified in The American Five, but spanning December 1955 through December 1956) is New York attorney Stanley Levison (Harry Smith), who offers his skills as fundraiser and legal advisor and becomes a significant influence in promoting what today would be called King’s “brand.”

Sydney Elisabeth and Rashun Carter

These three men—Rustin, Jones, and Levison—are all devoted to King and advancing his message. In the context of the United States in the early 1960s, they also all have something to hide. Rustin was a member of the American Communist Party until 1941, a pacifist, and a gay man jailed for having sex in a car with two men; Jones is a Black man married to a white woman and the father of mixed-race children (a significant issue in the 1950s—the Supreme Court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia, allowing interracial marriage, did not come down until 1967); Levison, a Jew, was a member of the Communist Party until 1957 and had been part of the defense of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Harry Smith and Brett Diggs

These men, along with Coretta, whose status as a Black woman places her firmly outside the mainstream of influence in this era, are the figures who push King to find a way to expand his message beyond the call for jobs and freedom for Black Americans that formed the impetus for the 1963 march. The penultimate scene is a satisfying and revelatory depiction of King’s recognition of the need to embrace the wider, yet-to-be-realized promise of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, what he called “a promissory note” guaranteeing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all Americans.

Archival video (Alex Hill) provides a backdrop to the live stage performances, while Baron E. Pugh‘s scenic design and Sam Rushen‘s lighting move us from hotel rooms to the King home to various offices. Under McIntyre’s direction, the cast and creative team behind The American Five work effectively, like King’s close circle of advisors, to offer a welcome corrective to the widely presented sanitized and saintly version of King as a heroic loner.

Rashun Carter

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photos by Caelan Carlough

The American Five
Berkshire Theatre Group
The Unicorn Theatre, 6 East St. in Stockbridge, MA
2 hours with one intermission
ends on July 11, 2026
for tickets, visit Berkshire Theatre Group

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