Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. met once, briefly, just long enough to shake hands at a public event and be on their respective ways. The Meeting imagines what the two icons of the Civil Rights Movement would talk about if they had an hourlong one-on-one.<\/p>\n
Set in 1965, Jeff Stetson\u2019s play is presented as the expected clash of ideologies between the nonviolence-preaching King, a Southern Baptist, and the Muslim convert X, who was convinced that fighting for equality and respect was necessary for beaten-down African Americans.<\/p>\n
Yet as the current production at Stageworks Theatre makes clear, the two had more in common than history tells us. Both men, who would, in short order, be assassinated for their beliefs and actions, desired the same result.<\/p>\n
Stetson crafted his dialogue from his subjects\u2019 speeches, letters and interviews.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s two things I would like the audience to take away,\u201d said Marc Coleman, who plays King. \u201cOne is how to have a discourse, a conversation, with someone that you disagree with. That\u2019s something I feel is lost in today\u2019s age.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd also, their actual philosophies. There are two different ways you can go about your problems, and they are Martin Luther King and Malcom X. But they\u2019re both needed. They\u2019re both important, essential.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added actor Lance Markeith Felton: \u201cAs the person playing Malcolm, I want people to recognize that love takes anger. Some things have to upset you, stir you, move you. What you do with that anger, and how you place that anger, is the choice. And that\u2019s where something crosses a line.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can be angry that things are not going the way that you foresee; I think that idealism has a place in society, but we also have to learn where we place that love, place that anger and frustration, in order to make change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both actors were familiar with Stetson\u2019s play. During their junior and senior years at Tampa\u2019s Blake High School (well over a dozen years ago), as representatives of the theater program they performed scenes from The Meeting in other schools, churches and libraries. Sometimes they did the entire show.<\/p>\n
Felton is Stageworks\u2019 Playwright-in-Residence; he suggested a full production of The Meeting to Artistic Director Karla Hartley, who added it to the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n
They invited friend and colleague Rory Lawrence, creator of the Tampa Bay Theatre Festival, to direct.<\/p>\n
Lawrence said he\u2019d become used to handling all aspects of shows he directs, so he balked when Felton said Coleman, his acting partner from the Blake days, would be playing Dr. King. Lawrence had never met him or seen him onstage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went to dinner,\u201d Lawrence recalled, \u201cand all I had to do was sit down and talk to Marc, and I said yeah. And when we got to working, I didn\u2019t have to beg these guys to research, I didn\u2019t have to beg them to create in rehearsal, which is a director\u2019s dream.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of actors, they just read their lines. But they were discussing the monologues, and what should be done \u2026 I don\u2019t think it was because they were invested in it before. I think now that they\u2019re older, they said \u2018let\u2019s really jump into it.\u2019 In the past, I don\u2019t think they dug into these characters this deep.\u201d<\/p>\n
Explained Coleman: \u201cThrough our research, we came to the realization that they both became a little less radical in their way of thinking. Malcolm X particularly when he went to the Middle East and Mecca, where he saw Black and white Jews, and Muslims and Christians, all kind of co-mingling.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Martin Luther King, because of the backlash of he was getting from a lot of his supporters. At the end of the non-violence movement, a lot of them were saying \u2018Man, this is not working out. We\u2019re getting beat out here on a regular basis.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Because X and King died during the turbulent \u201860s, neither actors nor director had firsthand knowledge of the events discussed in The Meeting. However, Lawrence got an earful from his church congregation when he took a moment to talk about his upcoming play.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople approached me and said \u2018I was alive when all this was happening,\u2019\u201d the director recalled. \u201cOne guy, he\u2019s coming to the show with his whole family next week, he said \u2018These marches that you\u2019re showing? You\u2019re showing some of the key stuff, but we did this all the time. They were a dime a dozen. You didn\u2019t see it on TV, but we were doing this constantly.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought about that. I\u2019ve learned a lot through the duration of this play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawrence and Felton co-authored a short introductory scene, set in a contemporary poetry open mic, that gives The Meeting a present-day foreshadowing.<\/p>\n
Both actors appear in this scene, as does Demetre Taylor, who\u2019ll re-appear later as Malcolm X\u2019s bodyguard and confidant Rashad.<\/p>\n
Felton, who is also a prolific writer and rapper, sees The Meeting as not only historically important, but a milestone in bay area theater.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always felt that this community said \u2018We don\u2019t know where the artists of color are at to fill a cast,\u2019\u201d he declared. \u201cAnd so, this was the first strike in like, hey, we are out here, we exist and this is the kind of work we\u2019re trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s particularly proud of the nuances he and Coleman have discovered for their characters. \u201cMy dad always tells me that when you get into a negotiation, it\u2019s not adversarial. You\u2019re not going back and forth with somebody to win over them. You\u2019re in a dance. It\u2019s about guiding both parties to the outcome that they want.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd they always say, if both parties are not a little bit annoyed after a negotiation, then it wasn\u2019t a good negotiation.\u201d<\/p>\n