Fats Ham, playwright James Ijames’ comedy-drama reinvention of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, obtained the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama right now, simply days earlier than the acclaimed play is to make its New York debut on the Public Theater Off Broadway.
“A humorous, poignant play that deftly transposes Hamlet to a household barbecue within the American South to grapple with questions of identification, kinship, duty and honesty,” stated Pulitzer Prize Administrator Marjorie Miller in asserting the prize. Fats Ham took the glory over two different finalists, Promoting Kabul by Sylvia Khoury and Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord by Kristina Wong.
Fats Ham, which premiered final yr in a filmed manufacturing for the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, begins its New York engagement on the Public Theater on Might 12, working via June 12. A co-production with Nationwide Black Theatre, Fats Ham shall be directed by Saheem Ali.
Watch a trailer for the Wilma Theater manufacturing of Fats Ham above.
The Public’s web site gives the next description of Ijames’ play: “Juicy is a queer, Southern faculty child, already grappling with some severe questions of identification, when the ghost of his father exhibits up of their yard, demanding that Juicy avenge his homicide. It appears like a well-known story to Juicy, well-versed in Hamlet’s woes. What’s completely different is Juicy himself, a delicate and self-aware younger Black man making an attempt to interrupt the cycles of trauma and violence in service of his personal liberation. From an uproarious household barbecue emerges a compelling examination of affection and loss, ache and pleasure. Fats Ham is a tasty comedian tragedy directed by The Public’s Affiliate Creative Director Saheem Ali.”
Immediately’s Pulitzer announcement follows by simply hours the revealing of this yr’s Tony Award nominations, which had been topped in quantity – 11 nominations – by Michael R. Jackson’s 2020 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning A Unusual Loop. That musical had its world premiere at New York’s Off Broadway Playwrights Horizons, in collaboration with Web page 73 Productions, in Might 2019, and in addition encompasses a younger, Black queer man as its principal character.
Final yr’s Pulitzer winner, Katori Corridor’s comedy-drama play The Sizzling Wing King, was given its world premiere by Off Broadway’s Signature Theatre Firm simply earlier than the 2020 pandemic shutdown.
Value of Dwelling, Martyna Majok’s play that received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, shall be getting its Broadway premiere this fall, the Manhattan Theatre Membership introduced lately.
