The West Coast premiere of the Broadway production of Fat Ham opens at the Geffen Playhouse this Spring. The five-time Tony Award nominee as well as the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama winner opened on April 4, 2024. This show is such a success, it has been extended through May 11, 2024. 

Fat Ham 

The play is written by James Ijames (Kill Move Paradise, The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington). Saheem Ali’s (Merry Wives, Goddess) Broadway production of Fat Ham will be directed by Sideeq Heard (The Hot Wing King, A Curious Thing).

The cast includes Nikki Crawford (The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington, Stormy Weather) as Tedra; Chris Herbie Holland (White Noise, The Box) as Tio; Billy Eugene Jones (Purlie Victorious, A Soldier’s Play) as Rev/Pap; Adrianna Mitchell (Snowfall, What to Send Up When It Goes Down) as Opal; Marcel Spears (The Neighborhood, The Mayor) as Juicy; Benja Kay Thomas (Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven, Bootycandy) as Rabby; and Matthew Elijah Webb (YELL: a “documentary” of my time here, A Raisin in the Sun) as Larry.

Courtesy of Geffen Theatre

Fat Ham first premiered in 2022 at The Public Theater as a co-production between National Black Theatre and also The Public Theater. Fat Ham made its Broadway premiere on April 12, 2023.

Synopsis

Juicy is a young, queer Black man with a Shakespearean-sized dilemma. When the ghost of his dead father shows up at his family’s BBQ wedding reception demanding his murder be avenged, does Juicy, the poetic and sensitive protagonist, have it in him to do the deed, or will he “to thine own self be true?”

Photo by Hunter Kerhart; courtesy of the Geffen

Admission and Schedule

Tickets range from  $30.00 – $129.00; Visit the website for additional info and to purchase tickets

Monday – Tuesday No performance; Wednesday – Friday 8:00pm; Saturday 3:00pm and 8:00pm; Sunday 2:00pm and 7:00pm

What: Performance, Fat Ham
Where: Gil Cates Theater at Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., LA, 90024 
When: Extended through May 11, 2-24
Website: https://www.geffenplayhouse.org/

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