Actor Richard E. Burton Sets New Release Date for Muhammad Ali Show
Industry: Books
Originally scheduled for October, 2016, “Ali and Me: Lessons I Learned from the Champ” will be released in September as a streaming video on the Internet.
Silver Spring, MD (PRUnderground) June 14th, 2016
Television actor Richard E. Burton (announced a new opening date for the one-man show based on his life with legendary boxer Muhammad Ali.
Originally scheduled for October, 2016, “Ali and Me: Lessons I Learned from the Champ” will be released in September as a streaming video on the Internet.
After Muhamad Ali’s death on June 3, Burton said, “I want to push the project along because I’ve already missed my goal of finishing the film before his health failed him.”
Burton, who appeared in the HBO acclaimed TV show, ‘The Wire,” met Muhammad Ali in 1985 when he was a teenage singer appearing in a high school talent and fashion show in Baltimore. A month later, the renowned boxer signed Burton to a contract with Ali’s recording company, Millionaire Records. For two years, Burton’s troupe was the opening act for venerated R&B groups like the Temptations and Kool & the Gang.
“I learned so much from the champ,” declares Burton, “and I want to show not only how that bond with the champ changed my life, but also how he handed down to me valuable principles that can help other young men. He helped me navigate my way through and out of the ghetto.” The actor says that his early environment could have killed him and doused any positive expectations that he may have held.
“But Ali always emphasized love, discipline, and dedication,” says Burton.
Since his book proposal written with novelist Barry Beckham about the Ali relationship is not yet contracted, he and Burton decided to use it as the basis for his one-man show. He will film the play at Baltimore’s Arena Players—the country’s longest continuously operating African-American community theater. He will release the streaming video on the Internet in September. Scriptwriter Beckham will direct the show produced by Upstream Media.
His fast-paced narrative describes Burton’s dealing with his mother’s heroin addiction, listening to major performers reveal their innermost secrets, learning about self-control and commitment from the Muslim-inspired Ali, participating in the renowned Baltimore Believe anti-drug program, and landing a starring role in the HBO television series, “The Wire.”
Burton arranged with the Beckham Publications Group to publish a Kindle version of the show’s summary (https://tinyurl.com/znopsmn) available at Amazon.
About Richard E. Burton
Richard E. Burton is a nationally recognized entertainer and speaker whose role as Shaun “Shamrock” McGinty, right-hand man to drug kingpins Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell in the HBO television drama series, The Wire set new benchmarks in character acting. Broadcast from 2002 to 2008 and featuring various sides of urban life in Baltimore, the show was cheered by Rebecca Traister in Salonlcom as “the best TV show of all time,” and saluted by the Telegraph of London as “arguably the greatest television programme ever made.”
Burton is preparing his first one-man show based on his years with Muhammad Ali’s recording company.
Find him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/richard.burton.3745?fref=nf
About Beckham Publications Group
Beckham Publications Group, Inc. (www.beckhamhouse.com) is a major Internet publisher specializing in cutting edge and multicultural titles. Founder and president Barry Beckham is a novelist whose works have been critically acclaimed by the New York Times Book Review and was director of the graduate writing program at Brown University where he taught for 17 years.
About Beckham Publications Group, Inc
Leading publisher of cutting edge and multicultural titles
