CofC Stages, housed in the Department of Theatre and Dance, presents this staged reading as one of the 2024-2025 "Old is New Again" season openers in the new Simons Center Black Box Theatre and as part of Charleston's Moja Arts Festival 40th year.

The Drama of King Shotaway, written by Marvin McAllister, is set in remote Greenwich Village in 1822. Impresario William Brown and his all-African company defy local authorities to mount a play: a real insurrectionary drama about the indigenous Black Caribs of St. Vincent. This will be a Black dramatic first in the Americas, but Brown and his celestials haven’t a clue they are making history by staging someone else’s history.