Burning Coal: Ashe in Johannesburg

1968 was a year of profound changes in America. Riots roiled following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.; a month after the disastrous Tet offensive, CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite called for an end to the Vietnam War. And an outwardly unassuming twenty-five-year-old named Arthur Ashe broke through the color barrier in tennis while on temporary leave from West Point, winning the U.S. Open and helping the U.S. team take the Davis Cup. The following year, Ashe was ranked number one in the world. But when he applied to join his peers at the South African National Championships, his visa application was denied by the apartheid government for three consecutive years. Under international pressure, Ashe was permitted to compete beginning in 1973, but an off-court experience in Johannesburg propelled him into a life of activism. Artistic director Jerome Davis directs Joel Oramas in the world premiere of a work the company commissioned from rising New York playwright Hannah Benitez. —Byron Woods