An 'Overwhelming' opening

“We don’t need something else that says, ‘the Tutsis are good, the Hutus are bad,’” said “The Overwhelming” playwright JT Rogers (pictured with his wife) at the Broadway opening on Tuesday.

The play, which follows a family of naïve Americans through the country in the time leading up the the Rwandan genocide, opened at the Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theater last night.
Rogers said that he had read 15,000 pages of research for his historically meticulous play, and had memorized the maps of Kigali as it was in 1994. “I hope that people go home and ask questions about what happened,” said the playwright.
Rogers and his actors, including James Rebhorn and Linda Powell, hobnobbed with guests like Lauren Bacall and Jefferson Mays at the Millennium Hotel after the show. (S. Thielman)