AMERICAN SON Reading Will Benefit the Entertainment Community Fund Next Month
The reading is set for July 13.
By: Stephi Wild Jun. 23, 2025
A one night only staged reading of the American Son will take place next month, benefitting the Entertainment Community Fund. The reading is set for July 13.
The cast will include award-winning Broadway artists Trisha Jeffrey (Motown, Three Mothers, The Color Purple) and Jennifer Fouche (Mama Morton in Broadway’s Chicago, Chicken and Biscuits, POTUS) and Michael Simon Hall (Warner Brothers’ Bruce Wayne Experience in NYC, HBO’s I Know This Much Is True) and James M Reilly (Law and Order SVU).
Directed by Mac Anderson-Cooper and Wardell Julius Clark, the reading will also feature a talkback about empowering BIPOC youth, and refreshments will be available, all to benefit the Entertainment Community Fund.
This reimagining of this timely and provocative drama about a Black woman whose son may be in desperate trouble, has an unexpected twist that reframes everything - for the first time, the senior police officer will be portrayed as a Black woman instead of a Black man, as the role was originally concieved by playwright Christopher Demos-Brown.
"Having Lieutenant Stokes played by a Black woman illuminates the conversation with mother Kendra, bringing it to a whole new height." - Directors Wardell Julius Clark (they/them) and Mac Anderson-Cooper (they/them)
All net proceeds from this event will benefit the Entertainment Community Fund (formerly The Actors Fund). Due to dramatic federal arts funding cuts, many artists are in need of assistance.
American Son had a limited Broadway run in the 2018-2019 season starring Kerry Washington and Steven Pasquale. Written by Christopher Demos-Brown, this timely drama is ripped from the headlines, exploring big issues about race, class, criminal justice, and the continuing challenges of raising a Black son in America. In the middle of the night at the local police station, Kendra Ellis-Connor is joined by her estranged White husband Scott Connor, who works for the FBI. While trying to get answers from police officers about the status of their son Jamal, who has just turned eighteen and has been mysteriously detained, the bi-racial couple confronts their conflicted feelings about race and bias, and how the resulting breakdown of their marriage may have affected their son and the current trouble he is in.
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