Written by Keith Glover, Directed by Tevyn Washington, Music by Keb’Mo’

Music and Lyrics by Keb’ Mo’ and Anderson Edwards

Additional Music and Lyrics by Keith Glover

The finale of Stages’ 2022-2023 season, Thunder Knocking on the Door starts as a deal with the devil and turns into a love story for the ages. This show "asks us what we believe about love, about art, about family and explores the crossroads of all of these ideas,” said artistic director Kenn McLaughlin. "It is a fairy tale. It is the blues. It is highly theatrical and it abounds with pure joy that flashes like lightning again and again.”

Featuring the extraordinary songs of three-time Grammy Award winner Keb’ Mo’, this musical fable follows a mysterious blues guitar-playing stranger who arrives in a small Alabama town at the door of the Dupree family, bringing a challenge for the offspring of his late rival. The stranger’s bargain pits family legacy against a tempting futurPart family reckoning, part epic love, and all blues, Thunder Knocking on the Door brings soul to Stages.

Kenn first fell in love with the show more than 20 years ago, and he’s worked for years to be the first theater to bring this show to Houston.

"Thunder Knocking on the Door is one of those magical experiences in the theatre where a simple family story transforms into an epic fairy tale,” he said. "There are so many theatrical surprises and so much joy, I still hold the first time I saw this show in 1998 as one of my favorite evenings in the theatre ever. This show has absolutely everything I love—big surprises, great joy, remarkable writing, big ideas revealed through intimate relationships, and a musical score that is second to none. It has been one of my favorite plays for many years, and I'm so glad to finally bring it here to Houston.”

The Details

June 16-August 6

Press Opening: June 22

Wednesday - Thursday, 7:30pm

Friday, 8:00pm

Sunday, 2:30pm

Run time: 2 hours with an intermission

Link to purchase tickets: https://stageshouston.com/event/thunder-knocking-on-the-door/

About Keith Glover

Keith Glover is from Bessemer, Ala. He is a member of The New Dramatist Playwrights Organization and a recipient of a Pew Charitable Fellowship grant in 1996. His first play, Dancing on Moonlight, was produced in 1995 at the New York Shakespeare Festival. His second play, Coming of the Hurricane, was produced by the Denver Center Theatre Company (1994) at Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul, Minn. (1995) and at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. (1996). His third play, Thunder Knocking on the Door, a blusical tale of rhythm and blues, was produced by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Baltimore's Center Stage, The Dallas Theatre Center and Yale Repertory Theatre during the 1996-97 season. As an actor, Glover has appeared regionally at Center Stage in Baltimore as Sterling in Two Trains Running, at Hartford Stage as Scott in Pill Hill, and as Lyons in Fences with John Amos at Capital Repertory Company. On television, Glover has appeared on the Fox series New York Undercover as Adrean Franks and on the daytime drama As the World Turns as Kenny Hathaway. On film, Glover appeared in Jackknife with Robert DeNiro.

About Keb’ Mo’

Born and raised in Compton, Keb’ began his remarkable journey at the age of 21, when he landed his first major gig playing with Jefferson Airplane violinist Papa John Creach. For the next 20 years, Keb’ would work primarily behind the scenes, establishing himself as a respected guitarist, songwriter, and arranger with a unique gift for linking the past and present in his evocative playing and singing. Though he recorded a one-off album in 1980 under his birth name, Kevin Moore, it wasn’t until 1994 that he would introduce the world to Keb’ Mo’ with the release of his widely acclaimed self-titled debut. Critics were quick to take note of Keb’s modern, genre-bending take on old school sounds, and two years later, he garnered his first GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album with Just Like You. In the decades to come, Keb’ would take home four more GRAMMY Awards; top the Billboard Blues Chart seven times; perform everywhere from Carnegie Hall to The White House; collaborate with many including Taj Mahal, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, The Chicks, and Lyle Lovett; have compositions recorded and sampled by artists as diverse as B.B. King, Zac Brown, and BTS; release signature guitars with both Gibson and Martin; compose music for television series like Mike and Molly, Memphis Beat, B Positive, and Martha Stewart Living; and earn the Americana Music Association’s 2021 award for Lifetime Achievement in Performance.

In addition to his extraordinary musical output, Keb’ also established himself as a captivating onscreen presence over the years, appearing as himself in Martin Scorcese’s The Blues, Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, and even the iconic children’s series Sesame Street. He flexed his acting chops in a wide variety of projects, as well, portraying Robert Johnson in the 1998 documentary Can’t You Hear The Wind Howl, Howlin’ Wolf on CMT’s Sun Records, and the ghostly bluesman Possum in John Sayles’ 2007 film Honeydripper. A fixture on late night TV and award show stages, Keb’ has also performed on Letterman, Leno, Conan, Colbert, and Austin City Limits in addition to appearing on nationally televised broadcasts from The Kennedy Center, The Ryman Auditorium, and Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Festival.

A passionate philanthropist and outspoken activist, Keb’ has devoted countless hours and helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of social, environmental, and racial justice throughout his career. As a celebrity mentor with The Kennedy Center’s Turnaround Arts Program, which began under the guidance of First Lady Michelle Obama and the President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities, Keb’ “adopted” The Johnson School for Excellence in Chicago, where he teamed up with teachers, students, and parents to help develop a thriving arts education program, and as a longtime ambassador for the Playing For Change Foundation, he’s supported the non-profit from its early days in its quest to provide free music education and basic needs like food, water, medicine, clothing, books, and school supplies to children around the world.