Vulture
Our Most Anticipated Shows on and Off Broadway in 2023
King James
by Rajiv Joseph
directed by Kenny Leon
with Glenn Davis, Chris Perfetti, Khloe Janel
OFF-BROADWAY AT
New York City Center Stage I
Opened Tuesday, May 16, 2023.
Closed Sunday, June 18 , 2023.
"King" LeBron James was just the hero that Cleveland needed. One of the greatest NBA players to ever hit the court, his influence on the whole city loomed large for the dozen years of his reign. Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph’s (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo) wonderfully funny and remarkably moving new play chronicles the unexpected friendship between two men whose intertwined fortunes are tied to those of their idol. This highly anticipated, adrenaline-packed New York premiere about the power of connection is directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon (A Raisin in the Sun, Fences).
For audience advisories for King James, please click here.
Photo: Glenn Davis, Chris Perfetti. Photo by Luke Fontana.
Support for King James is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.
“’Abbott Elementary’ star CHRIS PERFETTI shines. GLENN DAVIS is superb.”
Entertainment Weekly
“INTENSELY WATCHABLE AND ASTUTELY OBSERVED. The perfect Chris Perfetti and Glenn Davis give emotionally precise performances.”
The New York Times
“Game On! If you love LeBron, King James is just the ticket!”
Daily Beast
“★★★★!
Playwright Rajiv Joseph shoots and scores! Pitch-perfect direction by Kenny Leon!”
New York Stage Review
OUTER CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD NOMINEE
OUTSTANDING NEW OFF-BROADWAY PLAY
“A brilliant must-see! Perfetti and Davis are dynamite! One of the best plays you’ll see this year!”
Theatermania
“Exquistely acted! Chris Perfetti is excellent. Glenn Davis is truly superb. They’re perfection!”
CitiTour
“EXUBERANT AND TERRIFIC!”
The Wall Street Journal
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Manhattan Theatre Club produces a wide range of theatre both on and off-Broadway. In a history spanning almost 50 years, they have won 28 Tony Awards, 7 Pulitzer Prizes, and developed into one of the country’s most acclaimed theatres.
If you intend to see three or more MTC productions in the coming year, you can join MTC and add this show to your package now. MTC Subscribers save up to 40% off the cost of individual tickets, receive priority seating, early access to tickets, and no-risk flexibility to exchange tickets for a different performance date free of charge, for any reason.
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TodayTix Rush
A limited number of $30 rush tickets for each performance are available the day of the show at TodayTix.com. Rush tickets are subject to availability and blackout.
Student Rush
Student rush tickets are available at the box office on the day of the show when the box office opens. Tickets are $30 (including all fees), payable by cash or credit card, and are available to students with an ID from a degree or diploma granting institution. Tickets are subject to availability and are limited to two per valid ID. Note that anyone aged 35 or under may prefer to purchase their tickets through the 30 Under 35 program instead.
Click here for a seating chart. Stage I seats 300. All seats are on Orchestra level—all seating accessible by elevator. Stage I is accessible to people with disabilities and is equipped with both assistive listening and hearing-aid compatible devices. For more information on accessibility, please click here.
Through the run King James, masks are required for all audience members attending performances on Tuesday evenings and Sunday matinees.
For all other performances, masks are not required, but strongly encouraged.
Cast
Glenn Davis
Shawn
| Glenn Davis is an accomplished actor, producer, and an Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre. He garnered widespread acclaim for his performance in the world premiere of Rajiv Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. Davis appeared most recently in King James at Steppenwolf and CTG. He will next be seen in the off-Broadway production of the award-winning Downstate. Additional Steppenwolf performing credits include The Christians, Head of Passes, and The Brother/Sister Plays. He has appeared off-Broadway at MCC Theater and the Vineyard Theatre. Additionally, Glenn has performed at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the National Theatre, and the Stratford Festival. Davis is a partner at The Chatham Grove Company alongside producing partner Tarell Alvin McCraney. He is also an Artistic Associate at The Young Vic Theatre in London and at the Vineyard Theatre in New York. |
Chris Perfetti
Matt
| Chris Perfetti stars as a series regular on the award-winning ABC comedy series “Abbott Elementary.” Perfetti starred in the world premiere of King James at Steppenwolf and CTG, originating the role of “Matt” to great acclaim. NY Theater: Moscow x5 (MCC; OCC Honor; Drama Desk and Drama League nominations); The Low Road (The Public), Six Degrees of Separation (Broadway); Everybody (Signature Theater); Picnic (Broadway); The Tempest (Delacorte Theater); The Tutors (2nd Stage); Cloud Nine (Atlantic Theater Company); Sons of the Prophet (Roundabout; Theater World Award). Other TV appearances include: “Looking” (HBO), “The Night Of” (HBO), “The Resident” (FOX), “In the Dark” (CW), “Bonding” (Netflix), “What We Do in the Shadows” (FX), “Crossbones” (NBC) “Next Caller” (NBC), “Bull” (CBS) and “Gotham” (FOX). In film, Perfetti has recently been seen in The Virtuoso, Minyan, The Surrogate and Before I Go. |
Khloe Janel
DJ
Khloe Janel is beyond grateful to be making their Manhattan Theatre Club debut! Their recent theatre credits include King James (Center Theatre Group, Steppenwolf Theatre), Hatfield & McCoy (House Theatre of Chicago), Fly Honey Show (The Den Theatre) and Haymarket (Underscore Theatre). Their film credits include I Used To Go Here, which is now streaming on HBO Max. Their television credits include “Easy,” “The Chi,” “Empire,” “Chicago Fire,” and “Chicago P.D.” Gratitude and love for my mothers, brothers, chosen family and ancestors. Khloejanel.com @Khloe_Janel
Glenn Davis
Shawn
Chris Perfetti
Matt
Khloe Janel
DJ
RJ Brown
u/s Shawn, DJ
RJ is proud to be making his MTC debut! Recent theater credits include: White Noise at Studio Theater and Mope at Ensemble Studio Theater. Recent TV/Film credits include: “13 reasons Why”, “The Carrie Diaries”, The Frontrunner and The Equalizer. He’s a proud University of Michigan graduate and looks forward to having the daily debate about LeBron being the undeniable Goat. Thanks to Gersh, my friends and family!
Gregory Perri
u/s Matt
Gregory is very excited to return to MTC having covered the role of Stevie in the Broadway production of Good People. Other select NY credits include: Idea Of Me (Cherry Lane Theater) A Loss of Roses (Peccadillo). Select regional credits include Smart People (Arena Stage), The Whipping Man (Syracuse Stage), Macbeth and The Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare on the Sound). TV: “The Other Two,” “New Amsterdam,” “FBI: Most Wanted,” “The Jack and Triumph Show,” “The Good Wife.” Select Film: Not Fade Away, The Wolf of Wall Street, All is Bright, Bastards of Young, Thinking with Richard. MFA: Rutgers.
RJ Brown
u/s Shawn, DJ
Gregory Perri
u/s Matt
Creative
Rajiv Joseph
Playwright
Rajiv Joseph’s play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama and was also awarded a grant for Outstanding New American Play by the National Endowment for the Arts. He has twice won the Obie Award for Best New American Play, first in 2016 with Guards at the Taj (also a 2016 Lortel Winner for Best Play) and then in 2018 with Describe the Night. Other plays include King James, Letters of Suresh, Archduke, Gruesome Playground Injuries, Animals Out of Paper, The Lake Effect, The North Pool and Mr. Wolf. Joseph has been awarded artistic grants from the Whiting Foundation, United States Artists and the Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal.
Kenny Leon
Director
Kenny Leon is a Tony Award-winning director who also has been honored with The Actors Fund Medal of Honor, an Obie Award and an NAACP Image Award. Mr. Leon is also a proud honoree of the George Abbott Lifetime Achievement for American Theatre. Broadway: A Soldier’s Play; American Son; Children of a Lesser God; Holler If Ya Hear Me; A Raisin in the Sun; The Mountaintop; Stick Fly; August Wilson’s Fences, Gem of the Ocean; and Radio Golf. Off-Broadway: The Underlying Chris, Everybody’s Ruby, Emergence-See! (The Public); Smart People (Second Stage). Television: “Colin in Black & White,” “4400,” “Amend: The Fight for America,” “American Son” (adapted for Netflix), “Hairspray Live!”, “The Wiz Live!”, “Steel Magnolias,” “Dynasty,” “In My Dreams.” Author: Take You Wherever You Go. Artistic Director Emeritus, Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company. Senior Resident Director: Roundabout Theatre Company.
Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Steppenwolf Theatre is America’s premier ensemble theatre. Formed in 1976 by Gary Sinise, Jeff Perry and Terry Kinney, the ensemble has expanded to 50 celebrated artists—among the top actors, playwrights and directors in the field. Productions launched at the theatre, from August: Osage County to Pass Over, and accolades including the National Medal of Arts and 12 Tony Awards made the Chicago theatre legendary. More than 40 original Steppenwolf productions have enjoyed success nationally and internationally, including Broadway, Off-Broadway, London, Sydney, Galway and Dublin. 2021 marked the opening of Steppenwolf’s landmark Arts & Education Center deepening the company’s commitment to Chicagoland teens. Glenn Davis and Audrey Francis are the Artistic Directors and E. Brooke Flanagan is Executive Director. steppenwolf.org
Center Theatre Group
Center Theatre Group, one of the nation’s preeminent arts and cultural organizations, is Los Angeles’ leading nonprofit theatre company, which, under the leadership of Managing Director / CEO Meghan Pressman and Producing Director Douglas C. Baker, and in collaboration with the five Associate Artistic Directors, Luis Alfaro, Lindsay Allbaugh, Tyrone Davis, Neel Keller, Kelley Kirkpatrick, programs seasons at the 736-seat Mark Taper Forum and 1,600 to 2,100-seat Ahmanson Theatre at The Music Center in Downtown Los Angeles, and the 317-seat Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. In addition to presenting and producing the broadest range of theatrical entertainment in the country, Center Theatre Group is one of the nation’s leading producers of ambitious new works through commissions and world premiere productions and a leader in interactive community engagement and education programs that reach across generations, demographics, and circumstance to serve Los Angeles. centertheatregroup.org
Sophiyaa Nayar
Associate Director
Todd Rosenthal
Scenic Design
Broadway: August Osage County (Tony), The Motherfucker with the Hat (Tony, Outer Critics Circle nom), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Of Mice and Men, This Is Our Youth, Straight White Men and Linda Vista. International: August Osage County (London, Australia); Beauty Queen of Leenane, Madama Butterfly (Ireland); Nice Fish, Downstate (London). Regional: Steppenwolf (35 productions), Goodman (artistic partner), Guthrie, Mark Taper, A.R.T., Berkeley Rep, Oregon Shakespeare and many others. Other awards: Distinguished Achievement Award (USITT), Olivier, Helen Hayes, Ovation, Bay Area Theater Critics, Joseph Jefferson, and the Michael Merritt Award. Professor, Northwestern University. Graduate, Yale Drama.
Samantha C. Jones
Costume Design
Samantha (she/her) is a costume designer and educator with previous design credits at Center Theatre Group, Geffen Playhouse, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Huntington Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Court Theatre, Paramount Theatre (Aurora), Steppenwolf Theatre, Drury Lane Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Chicago Children’s Theatre, Jackalope Theatre, Cleveland Playhouse, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Alley Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, First Stage Theatre, Skylight Music Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Peninsula Players Theatre and others. Upcoming productions include Incendiary (Woolly Mammoth Theatre). Her work can be viewed at samanthacjones.com
Lee Fiskness
Lighting Design
also designed King James for Steppenwolf Theatre and Mark Taper Forum. Based out of Chicago, Lee designs across the country for theatre, opera, television and exhibitions. International designs include The Jurassic World Exhibition (China), Marriage of Figaro (Japan), Movement Stories (Abu Dhabi). Lee has worked on lighting teams for “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “The Rosie Show,” “The Steve Harvey Show,” Fox Sports, NBC and Chicago Bears Network. Lee was the lighting director at The Santa Fe Opera and worked with the company for 18 seasons. leefiskness.com
Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen
Sound Design
Broadway credits include music composition and sound for No Man’s Land and Waiting for Godot, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Miracle Worker, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Speed of Darkness; and sound for Sweat, The Price, Larry David’s Fish in the Dark, This Is Our Youth, Of Mice and Men, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Superior Donuts, reasons to be pretty, A Year With Frog and Toad, The Song of Jacob Zulu and The Grapes of Wrath. They have also created music and sound Off-Broadway, at many of America’s resident theatres, London’s West End and at several other international venues. Please visit milbomusic.com.
Gigi Buffington
Vocal Coach
Broadway: Grey House, Between Riverside and Crazy, Cost of Living, The Minutes, Clyde’s, Slave Play, Pass Over, Linda Vista, Straight White Men, King Kong Live on Broadway. Off-Broadway: Lucy, Downstate, Evanston Salt Cost’s Climbing, Catch As Catch Can, Camp Siegfried, Corsicana, On Sugarland, Prayer for the French Republic, Heroes of the Fourth Turning. Royal Shakespeare Company, eight seasons at Steppenwolf, The Outsiders, The Devil Wears Prada. Film: text consultant for Ron Wimberly and Spike Lee’s Prince of Cats. Arts professor at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. AEA, SAG-AFTRA, VASTA.
JC Clementz
Casting
JC is the casting director at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Broadway: Linda Vista, Pass Over and The Minutes. Steppenwolf highlights: world premieres of Downstate by Bruce Norris (also at National Theatre, UK, and Playwrights Horizons), Ms. Blakk for President by Tarell Alvin McCraney and Tina Landau, and the 2021 revival of Bug by Tracy Letts. JC is also a freelance stage director and a proud member of SDC and the Casting Society.
Caparelliotis Casting & Kelly Gillespie
Additional Casting
Select Broadway: Cost of Living, How I Learned to Drive, Ink, Jitney, Grey House, Macbeth, The Minutes, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Waverly Gallery, Boys in the Band, Three Tall Women, A Doll’s House Part 2. Select theatres: Signature NY, Atlantic, The Old Globe, New York Theatre Workshop, Center Theatre Group, La Jolla Playhouse. TV: “New Amsterdam” series casting (NBC), “Boys in the Band” original casting (Netflix).
Richard A. Hodge
Production Stage Manager
Past MTC credits: Prayer for the French Republic. The Band’s Visit (The Barrymore), The Sound Inside (Studio 54). Sweeney Todd, The Effect, Tribes, Our Town, Adding Machine: A Musical, Bug, Orson’s Shadow, Red Light Winter (Barrow Street Theatre); The Band’s Visit, Women or Nothing, The Bedwetter (Atlantic Theater Company); When the Rain Stops Falling, Nikolai and the Others (Lincoln Center); Killer Joe, Underneath the Lintel (Soho Playhouse); Kindness, Iowa (Playwright Horizons); Stop the Virgens (St. Ann’s Warehouse). TYKAC.
Rajiv Joseph
Playwright
Kenny Leon
Director
Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Center Theatre Group
Sophiyaa Nayar
Associate Director
Todd Rosenthal
Scenic Design
Samantha C. Jones
Costume Design
Lee Fiskness
Lighting Design
Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen
Sound Design
Gigi Buffington
Vocal Coach
JC Clementz
Casting
Caparelliotis Casting & Kelly Gillespie
Additional Casting
Richard A. Hodge
Production Stage Manager
