Tarell McCraney
Q&A Talkback Discussion with Playwright & Company
Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney joined us at the Fountain Theatre on Saturday, August 16th, to see our acclaimed LA Premiere of his play The Brothers Size and engage the audience in a Q&A Talkback discussion after the performance. The memorable night was a special treat for all of us: a powerful and moving performance followed by an invigorating and insightful conversation between the artists and audience.
For the post-show Q&A, McCraney was joined on stage by director Shirley Jo Finney, actors Gilbert Glenn Brown, Matthew Hancock, Theodore Perkins, co-artistic directors Deborah Lawlor and Stephen Sachs, and producing director Simon Levy.
Stephen Sachs, Shirley Jo Finney, Tarell McCraney
McCraney was genuinely pleased and impressed by the Fountain production and praised its many successful elements. He was deeply stirred while watching his play unfold on our intimate stage, laughing loudly at the humor and moved to tears at its poignancy. Upon meeting the actors after the performance, McCraney knelt before them and touched the stage at their feet in respectful honor. He expressed his delight that director Shirley Jo Finney so expertly captured the mythic universe of the piece.
Tarell Alvin McCraney is a graduate of DePaul University and the Yale School of Drama. He is a playwright best known for his acclaimed trilogy, The Brother/Sister Plays, which blends myth with realism in the intergenerational story of an African-American community in Louisiana. McCraney’s has been lauded as the kind of voice that can define a generation; Ben Brantley wrote of The Brother/Sister Plays in The New York Times, “It’s what people must have felt during productions of the early works of Eugene O’Neill in the 1920s or of Sam Shepard in the 1960s.” McCraney is an ensemble member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, which premiered his new play Head of Passes this spring. He is also a resident playwright at New Dramatists and a member of Teo Castellanos/D-Projects in Miami, where he grew up in the Liberty City housing projects in the 1980s. McCraney’s other plays include The Breach (2008), about Hurricane Katrina, and Wig Out! (2007), about a family of New York drag queens. His latest play, Choir Boy, was produced at the Manhattan Theatre Club in June 2013 and opens in September at The Geffen Playhouse.
Our Los Angeles Premiere of The Brothers Size has earned rave reviews everywhere, including hailed as Critic’s Choice in the Los Angeles Times. It runs to September 14th. Get tickets here.
Enjoy These Photos from the Q&A with Tarell McCraney
