Review Roundup: What Did Critics Think of CHOIR BOY at SpeakEasy Stage?

Choir Boy is recently opened at SpeakEasy Stage Company and the reviews are in!

Due to overwhelming demand, SpeakEasy Stage Company has added an additional week of performances of its acclaimed production of the hit Broadway play CHOIR BOY. The show will now run thru Saturday, Oct. 19, 2019.

The entire cast, Jaimar Brown, Antione Gray, Dwayne P. Mitchell, Malik Mitchell, Aaron Patterson, Thomas Purvis, Isaiah Reynolds, Nigel Richards, J. Jerome Rogers, and Richard Snee will stay with the show for the additional dates.

Nominated for four 2019 Tony Awards including Best Play, CHOIR BOY is a powerful coming-of-age story punctuated by the soaring harmonies of live gospel, spiritual, and R&B performances. For fifty years, the elite Charles R. Drew Prep School has been dedicated to the education of strong, ethical black men; its legendary choir an emblem of all it holds true. But for Pharus Young, the opportunity to take his rightful place as the leader of these talented vocalists comes at a price. Can he still earn his place in the hallowed halls and sing in his own key?

CHOIR BOY is the work of acclaimed writer Tarell Alvin McCraney, Oscar-winner for the film Moonlight, which was based on his play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. Mr. McCraney's other plays include Ms. Blakk for President (co-written with Tina Landau), The Brother/Sister Plays, Head of Passes, and Wig Out! Mr. McCraney is currently the Chair of Playwriting at the Yale School of Drama, and is an ensemble member at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. His original TV series David Makes Man recently debuted on Oprah Winfrey's OWN Network.

Read what the critics had to say below!

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Jan Nargi, BroadwayWorld: SpeakEasy's CHOIR BOY is rich with talent, directed with great agility by Maurice Emmanuel Parent. Book scenes combine the everyday pressures of academic achievement with the personal angst and isolation that all of the students feel while on their journeys from boys to men. Choral numbers give voice to their underlying passions, often exploding into gospel, hip-hop, spiritual and R&B. The remarkable choreography by Yewande Odetoyinbo and Ruka White punctuates the singing with insistent percussion, executed by the ensemble with a violent precision that amplifies each boy's underlying frustrations. Sometimes an angry cacophony, other times a heartbreaking prayer, the singing and dancing provide essential escape routes for the eight choir boys - escape from their own personal insecurities and from externally applied oppressive norms.

Robert Israel, The Arts Fuse: Director Parent wisely pumps up Choir Boy's physical and choral elements in order to compensate for the script's vulnerabilities; the play, in many places, is weak. The spoken words fall short of the production's musical punch. For example, the encounters between several of the students and Headmaster Marrow (J. Jerome Rogers) are predictable (these include reprimands, rote citations of house rules, repeated reminders to call home, etc). Yes, these conflicts place us firmly in the school's environment by painting a realistic portrait of a repressive educational environment. But, in contrast to the show's electrifying harmonics, they are prosaic, undramatic. There are too many of them, to the point that you become impatient for them to end. Paring them back (especially deleting the awkward "calling home" scenes) would make those that remain more immediate - because they would be less familiar.

Michael Hoban, The Theater Mirror: The storytelling in Choir Boy reaches its greatest heights when McCraney lets us climb into his characters' skin and walk around in it for a while. McCraney provides sufficient material for actors Reynolds and Mitchell to delve more deeply into Pharus' and Bobby's characters and demonstrate their acting range, which is notably advanced for their years. I wish the playwright devoted less time to the scenes with the adult authority figures (the headmaster played by J. Jerome Rogers and retired teacher played by Richard Snee) and instead fleshed out the storiesof peers Anthony (Jaimar Brown), Junior (Aaron Patterson) and David (Dwayne P. Mitchell). Getting more than glimmers of these characters' struggles with parental, societal, and self-expectations and these young actors' dramatic abilities would have been more satisfying.

Stephanie Liu, The Heights: The cast boasts impressive vocal and dancing ability, with intricate step numbers executed to perfection. The cast members did not use microphones, relying on only the raw power of their voices to project into the audience, both giving an authentic performance and showing off their incredible vocal prowess.

Photo Credit: Nile Scott Studio

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