Becoming Martin Luther King Jr.

The memory of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has reverberated for years, ever since his assassination in 1968. Lionized as a hero of the Civil Rights Movement, the Nobel Peace Prize winner has been honored in countless books and movies. His face has graced postal stamps, and a federal holiday recognizes his contributions to the nation.

But who was the man behind closed doors, outside of the defining work he did for the Civil Rights Movement in the United States? One Tufts professor has been exploring that over the course of his career, by having both acted in and directed a play about King’s final moments. 

Maurice Emmanuel Parent, a professor of the practice in the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, first played King in a 2013 Underground Railway Theater production of Katori Hall’s “The Mountaintop’’ at Central Square Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In September and October of 2025, he directed a production of the play with the Front Porch Arts Collective at the Modern Theatre in Boston. 

“You always see [King] as almost this deity, this perfect person that faced all of these trials and tribulations to make the world a better place,” Parent said. “You never stop to think about the man behind that. So, playing Dr. King and directing a show about him gives me a real emotional connection to what he might have experienced behind the scenes that none of us got to see.”

“The Mountaintop” is set at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, the night before King’s assassination. The play gets its name from a phrase in his final speech, which is commonly known as his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech and focused on the Memphis sanitation strike.  

Toward the end of the speech, King referred to threats on his life and used biblical imagery to affirm that he was not afraid to die for his beliefs. He said, “I’ve been to the mountaintop. … And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!” 

The play is a historical fiction, with a touch of magical realism, and features an imagined conversation between the civil rights icon and a maid at the motel about the pressures King is facing. The two actors are on stage the entire time, talking nonstop through the 90-minute performance. Parent said that when he acted in the play, it took endurance to make it through every performance. 

Although “The Mountaintop” revolves around King’s imagined final moments, it focuses more on King’s humanity and impact than the tragedy that would soon follow.  

In the play, King is not infallible. He has smelly feet and doesn’t always say the right thing. He is struggling with doubt and the burdens of his responsibilities. But Parent said this vulnerability is what makes the work so impactful. 

“I think one of the many things the play does is say that if this man who is human and relatable could still change the world and make lasting impacts for all of us, for all of society, for all of humankind, we can all do our tiny part to keep passing his work on,” he said. 

Parent’s first dive into “The Mountaintop,” was as an actor. He said it was intimidating to play a man whose legacy was so well known—and to perform in a play that had debuted on Broadway in 2011 starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, just two years before Parent starred in the Cambridge production. 

To prepare for the role, Parent spent time researching the last years of King’s life, listened to his speeches, and worked with a vocal coach who helped him study King’s speech patterns and inflections, so he could adapt them to his own voice.  

Dominic Carter as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Kiera Prusmack as Camae in the Front Porch Arts Collective production of “The Mountaintop.” Photo: Benjamin Rose

The fall 2025 production was during Parent’s first theatrical season as producing artistic director of the Front Porch Arts Collective, and he chose “The Mountaintop” specifically because of his history with it and the chance to get to tell the story another time.  

The current political climate meant that “the message of the play resonated in new and profound ways this time,” Parent said. What guided his vision most as director was questioning what it meant to produce the play in 2025, and what people needed to feel by the end of it. 

Dominic Carter took on the mantle of King in the production. He had played the role three times prior, so Parent encouraged him to embrace his own history with the story. 

“He was an incredible collaborator,” Parent said. “He was open, generous, deeply engaged, and brought so much to the process. I was deeply moved by his interpretation from the moment of his audition. He truly lived the role, whereas I feel I played the role. I’m proud of my work, but in retrospect, I don’t think I ever fully got over the weight of playing such an important historical figure.”

Parent grew up in a family that honored King. But he felt the way King is often put on a pedestal sometimes made him take for granted the truly amazing things the activist did.  

“I didn’t even realize I didn’t give him the amount of respect that he deserved,” Parent said. “Now at a time when so much of his work and so much of the accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement are under assault and being torn down, heroes like Dr. King are that much more important to study and understand as best we can, to really look at with a human lens and understand that they were people just like us who were upset with the world and how they were treated and wanted to make a change.”  

The play unpacks the facets of King at a time when his behaviors were being scrutinized by the government and FBI. 

“He just wanted America to live up to its values, equality for all,” Parent said. “He went through hell for it and none of us know how we would behave under such pressures. So I think anyone who wants to judge some of his less popular decisions should really think about that. Who are we to judge someone who did so much for so many?”