Posted: 2/6/19 at 5:28pm
So far this season there have been a plethora of "new" plays. While Broadway likes to tout their edginess and always being ahead of the curve, the stories of To Kill a Mockingbird and Network are hardly new or fresh. Much to take away from them for sure, as well as Inventive and dramatically staged, but hardly new. The Ferryman is a play that comes along once every decade or so and has an epic feel and a lot to say. Choir Boy, for me, could not be a more present and timely work that delves into, unfortunately, the current landscape and make up of, not only New York, but all of America. Just look at the terrible story of what just happened to Jussie Smollett in Chicago in the year 2019. Choir Boy is that new work that today’s America could learn from and enjoy at the same time. I know I did and can’t wait to go back again.
This is, to me, the best play of the season, and quite a few seasons if you ask me. If a wider audience gets to see this story, maybe the hate in this country would lessen. A pie in the sky ideal, I realize. Imagine all the stories like that of Pharus that happen around this country and go untold. Much like Tarell Alvin McCranney's Moonlight swooping in and taking that Oscar right out of the hands of La La Land, I would be heartened to see Broadway do the same thing with Choir Boy. The voice of this play raises harmonies that sound beautiful.
