Presented by Nashville Repertory Theatre and Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Fat Ham may well be one of the season’s hottest tickets. And why not? James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play offers a thoughtful (and often hilarious) twist on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, taking the tale from dreary Denmark to a lively backyard cookout in the modern American South. Here we meet Juicy — a young, queer Black man, forced to “grapple with his father’s ghost, family expectations and the cycle of violence that haunts them all.” Mikael Burke (a respected Chicago-based director, who actually grew up here in Music City) makes his Nashville directorial debut, and the cast includes Chicago’s own Julian “joolz” Stroop as Juicy, along with local favorites like Tamiko Robinson Steele, Bakari J. King, Candace-Omnira, Michael A. McAllister-Spurgeon, Persephone Felder-Fentress and Gerold Oliver. And I’m eager to check out Gary C. Hoff’s scenic design and Melissa K. Durmon’s costumes. Taking on themes of identity, generational trauma and liberation, Fat Ham marks an exciting regional premiere — and a promising collaboration between two of the city’s leading arts organizations.
Feb. 13-22 at TPAC’s Johnson Theater
505 Deaderick St.
