Billy Porter to direct London stage production of This Bitter Earth by Harrison David Rivers

Billy Porter, photograph: Meredith Truax

The Grammy, Emmy and two-time Tony Award winner Billy Porter will direct a London stage production of This Bitter Earth by Harrison David Rivers. It is an intimate, romantic and gripping play about a young black writer and his white activist lover that asks, “What is the real cost of standing on the sidelines?”

At the Million Hoodie March in 2012, Jesse, a young black man, encounters Neil, a young white man who has unwittingly found himself at the front of the crowd with a megaphone in his hand. Flash forward several weeks, and Jesse and Neil have begun dating. But as the months pass and Neill works his way further into the world of activism, Jesse never enters it. Over the years, Jesse and Neil negotiate the complex “firsts” of their relationship against a backdrop of political demonstrations and discord. With history unfolding around them every day, Jesse and Neil must contend with the fact that, no matter their response to social turmoil, they cannot remain untouched by it.

An industry-only reading will take place on 1st November, starring Emmanuel Imani (Geek Girl, Netflix, The Wheel of Time, Amazon Studios) and Alexander Lincoln (Geek Girl, Netflix, feature film In From the Side - longlisted Best Breakthrough Performance - and Everything I Know About Love, BBC1).

Emmanuel Imani and Alexander Lincoln

Talking about the play, Billy Porter said:

“Harrison David Rivers has written a searingly poignant and necessary play about love and loss through the lens of the fraying American Democratic experiment. Simple. Complex. Direct and filled with compassion all at once. I’m thrilled to be a part of bringing this very special piece to life.”