‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Actress and Brownsville City Councilman To Perform Martin Luther King Sermon

FORT GREENE, BROOKLYN — ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ actress Samira Wiley and New York City Councilman Jumaane D. Williams will costar in a theatrical reading of Dr. Martin Luther King’s final sermon at the BRIC Open Festival on Sunday.

Wiley, best known for her portrayal of Poussey on "Orange Is The New Black," and Williams, who represents Brownsville, will join a gospel choir of activists, police officers and musicians from Ferguson, Missouri to perform “The Drum Major Instinct” at the BRIC House Ballroom on April 30.

The reading is part of the Theater of War Productions series, developed by NYC Public Artist in Residence Bryan Doerries, which explores the cathartic elements of theater.

Theater of War garnered national attention when Doerries produced a reading of Sophocles’ Philoctetes — a tragedy that centers on an abandoned and wounded soldier — that was performed to audiences of military veterans. Doerries, a theatrical director with classical training, began the project after losing his girlfriend to cystic fibrosis complications when she was 22-years-old.

Tickets are free for the "The Drum Major Instinct" reading and will be granted on a first-come-first-served basis. BRIC Open Festival will be offering several free performances, readings and talks — including a town hall on journalism in the era of President Trump — throughout the weekend.

"The Drum Major Instinct" was Dr. King’s final sermon at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, performed two months before his assassination. It closes with a request from King in regards to his eulogy.

“If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that's all I want to say.”

Images via BRIC Open Theater.