Emmy Winner Andre Braugher to Star in The Whipping Man at MTC

Two-time Emmy Award winner Andre Braugher will star in Manhattan Theatre Club’s forthcoming New York premiere of Matthew Lopez’s historical drama The Whipping Man. The play will begin performances on January 13, 2011, and open on February 1 at New York City Center Stage I, directed by Doug Hughes. Additional casting will be announced in the coming weeks.

Set at the end of the Civil War, The Whipping Man opens as Caleb DeLeon, a Jewish Confederate soldier, returns wounded from the battlefield to find his family home in ruins, abandoned by everyone except Simon (Braugher) and John, two former slaves who were raised as Jews in the DeLeon home. As the three men reunite to celebrate Passover, and recall the exodus from Egypt in light of their own new liberties, they uncover a tangle of secrets that bind them together and that, ultimately, might cost each man his freedom.

Winner of Emmy Awards for the miniseries Thief and for playing Detective Frank Pemberton in Homicide: Life on the Street, Braugher received Emmy nominations for the title role in Gideon’s Crossing, the HBO miniseries The Tuskegee Airmen and TNT’s comedy series Men of a Certain Age, which returns for a second season on December 6. On stage, Braugher received an Obie Award for the 1996 Shakespeare in the Park production of Henry V and has appeared on the New York stage in Hamlet, Richard II, Measure for Measure and Twelfth Night.

After premiering at Luna Stage in Montclair, New Jersey, The Whipping Man has been produced at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, Barrington Stage in the Berkshires, Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul, Minnesota and Caldwell Theatre in Boca Raton, Florida.

The creative team for MTC’s production of The Whipping Man will include John Lee Beatty (scenic design), Catherine Zuber (costume design), Ben Stanton (lighting design), Jill BC DuBoff (sound design) and J. David Brimmer (fight direction).