All the Way is a gripping new play about a pivotal moment in American history. This drama will take audiences behind the doors of the Oval Office and inside the first years of Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency, and his fight to pass a landmark civil rights bill. Bryan Cranston, Michael McKean and Brandon J. Dirden will be joined by an ensemble cast playing additional roles such as Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell, Robert McNamara, Coretta Scott King, Lady Bird Johnson, Bob Moses, Roy Wilkins, Lurleen Wallace, Stokely Carmichael, Walter Jenkins, Stanley Levison, George Wallace, Ralph Abernathy and Judge Smith.
All the Way was commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle and premiered at OSF in 2012. It then went on to play a sold-out and critically acclaimed run at the A.R.T. from September 13-October 12, 2013 starring Cranston. The play was awarded the 2013 inaugural Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History, established through Columbia University in honor of the late Senator Kennedy, honoring new plays or musicals exploring US history and issues of the day.
Cranston doesn't look or act much like the real LBJ (at least the one most of us saw on TV), and that's one of the more intriguing aspects of Bill Rauch's direction. Except for a dead-on Lady Bird Johnson (Betsy Aidem) and George Wallace (Rob Campbell), the cast avoids the Madame Tussauds approach to acting that has taken over biopics (and rarely fails to win actors their Oscars). Rauch keeps the focus on telling a complicated story as nimbly as possible, dispensing with the extreme makeup and mannerisms that would only get in the way as Brandon J. Dirden's MLK, Christopher Gurr's Strom Thurmond, Richard Poe's Everett Dirksen, William Jackson Harper's Stokely Carmichael, Robert Petkoff's Hubert Humphrey, Michael McKean's J. Edgar Hoover and Cranston's LBJ do battle with each other in 1964.
A little bit U.S. Senate and a little bit New York Philharmonic, designer Christopher Acebo's spacious set, given location specificity through a parade of scenes byShawn Sagady's projections, help the free-flowing pageantry of Robert Schenkkan's exciting and energetic drama, All The Way, gallop full speed in director Bill Rauch's pulse-racing production. At the center of a top-notch ensemble isBryan Cranston, portraying our 36th president with that memorable thick Texas drawl, a commanding presence, a quick mind and a ferocious temper. He is indeed a skilled conductor; ruthlessly political, bullying, foul-mouthed and often insensitive to those who show him the most loyalty, all for the cause of promoting the sweet harmony of civil rights with a minimal amount of rioting.
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