John Legend to Co-Produce New Off Broadway Play

Before John Legend and wife Chrissy Teigen welcome their first child together this spring, the Academy Award-winning musician is set to co-produce the off broadway play Turn Me Loose. 

Turn My Loose will tell the story of Dick Gregory, the famed comedian and civil rights activist, Variety reports. 

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Joe Morton, known for his role as Papa Pope in Scandal, will star in the production as Gregory during the 1960s.

The play will center around the comic as he encounters various forms of racism in his stand-up career, along with details surrounding his activism with Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers and other prominent names of the time. 

John Gould Rubin has been tapped as the director of the show, which will begin previews on May 3, leading up to a debut on May 19 at the Westside Theater. 

Along with his co-production role through Get Lifted Film Company—the same company responsible for the hit WGN series Underground—Legend will also pen an original song for the project.