Showtime gas released the trailer for its limited event series The Good Lord Bird, based on the 2013 National Book Award-winning novel The Good Lord Bird by bestselling author James McBride.
The show, from Blumhouse Television and executive produced by Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke, stars Hawke himself as controversial pre Civil War abolitionist John Brown, who organized an ultimately ill-fated raid on the U.S. Armory at Harpers Ferry in 1859. Joshua Caleb Johnson portrays Henry Shackleford aka “Little Onion,” a slave who joins up with Brown during the tense Bleeding Kansas era and eventually finds himself participating in his famous raid. Along the way, Onion has encounters with history and historical figures including Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.
The cast also includes Ellar Coltrane, Hubert Point-Du Jour, Beau Knapp, Nick Eversman, Jack Alcott, Mo Brings Plenty, Daveed Diggs (Hamilton), David Morse, Steve Zahn, Maya Hawke, Wyatt Russell, and Orlando Jones.
The trailer highlights, through onscreen lines, that “All of this is true. Most of it happened,” while scenes of Brown handling guns and not only are shown. The soundtrack music is “Electric Pow Wow Drum” by A Tribe Called Red.
The Good Lord Bird is scheduled to be released on August 9 at 10/9c.
