DramaLit Blog 1.0: BU School of Theatre

While I’ve been in many theatrical settings in which sports have been looked down upon and belittled, not to mention the people who watch them, I strongly believe, as an avid basketball and football fan and theatre practitioner, that there is a strong crossover between the disciplines, stemming from their common ground in, among other things, ritual and tradition, as well as heightened physicality and the intense drama that comes with rooting for your protagonist.

Unsurprisingly, the recent spate of sports-related theatre in New York has caused me great cheer in this regard. Beginning with Eric Simonson’s Lombardi, the story of the famed Green Bay Packers coach, which opened a little over a year ago, and ran for 244 performances at the Circle in the Square Theatre, the field has now opened further to include a new play, by the same author called Magic/Bird, which examines the friendship and rivalry between Lakers’ point guard Magic Johnson and Celtics’ forward Larry Bird – from their college days to NBA championship battles to the 1992 Olympic Dream Team. The show, not yet cast, has a projected opening date of March 21, 2012. While the 95-minute play only calls for 6 actors, and as a result, will unfortunately not feature any onstage 5-on-5 action, the casting notice does mention that one actor will portray the infamous Celtics’ coach Red Auerbach, complete with celebratory cigar. I’m incredibly excited that the story of these two fascinating players and individuals is being told in this medium, hopefully in a refreshing and theatrical manner that will break down some of the formulaity and triteness that has become endemic in Hollywood sports films. And, given the current state of the lockout negotiations, I’ll take basketball wherever I can get it.

Is there enough of a crossover audience to sustain this trend of sports-related drama? (I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Lysistrata Jones, which takes place on a college basketball court, but, as a musical comedy centering around a sex strike, it doesn’t really count.) While Lombardi was not overwhelmingly successful, it drew enough interest and audience members to make it a feasible option for Simonson, the producing team, and director Thomas Kail (In the Heights) to try their hand at another similar project. Theatrical treatment of athletic endeavors is nothing new. The Great White Hope (1967), a boxing drama starring James Earl Jones was hugely successful. Itamar Moses keenly probed the steroid scandal in the Off-Broadway Manhattan Theatre Club production of Back, Back, Back, which featured thinly veiled stand-ins for Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, and Walt Weiss. Richard Greenberg’s Tony-winning Take Me Out is a spectacular examination of homophobia in the world of baseball. Sports drama has been very successful here and there in the past, but often succeeding in spite of, instead of because of its subject matter. Might this change? Might it come more unabashedly front and center, bringing tons of new audience members to the theatre? Most likely not. But who knows?

(Here is some more info about the play.)