Review: CHOIR BOY at The Studio Theatre

Relevant. Mindful. Heartbreaking. Boundary-pushing. Powerful. Making its regional debut in Arkansas, Tarell Alvin McCraney’s CHOIR BOY at The Studio Theatre, 320 W 7th St, in Little Rock, is all of these things and more......so much more. Directors Dr. Nick Farr and X Freelon have brought an important story about identity and acceptance that needs to be told and have done an exquisite job with it. This troupe will grab at your soul, and those a cappella gospel harmonies......Y’all! You have until Saturday, March 30, to catch this production, and you don’t want to miss it.  

Set in Charles R Drew Prep School for Boys, the show opens with Pharus (Sa’Teh Hampton) and the choir singing Trust and Obey for the commencement, but while he is doing his solo, Bobby (Torres De’von Eskew) is right behind him making derogatory remarks that catches him off guard and gets him pulled into the Headmaster’s (Christopher Watkins) office to talk about his hesitation in the song. Pharus doesn’t give up the name, but Bobby thinks he did anyway and causes issues in choir, which leads to Pharus kicking him out. Bobby tries to get Junior (Tyler Alexander) on his side, and ultimately tells his daddy, who calls the Headmaster, who gets him back in the choir. Meanwhile, Headmaster hires Mr. Pendleton (Duane Jackson) to teach a class and get the kids to work together as a team. Later, Pharus and David (Evan Hamilton) have a situation that gets David into a lot of trouble, but AJ (Taylor Leron) is there to be his friend. So, I left a lot out of the story and a lot of details, because I really think you need to go see it. It truly is amazing, and I don’t want to spoil it.  

I will, however, speak about the amazing talent from this cast. First, I will address the singing. This is a musical, but it was all a cappella, and the crooning was sooooooo good. Their various solos were lyrical, but those harmonies really hit you in the feels. At any point that these guys want to turn into a boy band, ala, Boys II Men, I am here for it! There is not one person I can single out and give my starry heart eyes to, because every voice blew me away. I fell in love with them all, and that leads us to the choreography.  

Choreographer Daija Black had these guys grooving to their respective songs and during “Rockin’ Jerusalem” they were pulling some Stomp The Yard moves that had the whole audience cheering. In the talkback after the show (which will be in a follow up article), the whole cast was laughing about the challenge it was with that dance, especially Torres Eskew. Referring to Daija as little Debbie Allen Jr., Torres was ready to cut himself from the number until X gave him a little pep talk. “So they said there’s going to be a young person that comes in the audience that is big bodied, and they are going to see you on that stage and see you moving with those skinny ones there, and you are going to inspire them to do what you are doing now.” 

Speaking of Torres, he did great as the bully of the choir. He did not welcome how open Pharus was and caused a lot of trouble amongst the group.  

Christopher Watkins’ Headmaster was firm with the rules but was really rooting for Pharus to do well. In the talkback, Watkins said he is normally a laidback kind of guy, so he had to channel his mother for his character, who happened to be in the audience.  

Duane Jackson’s Mr. Pendelton was awkward in the best way. The character tripped over his words a lot, not meaning to offend the guys. He was supportive and concerned with how the guys treated each other. Jackson’s stages went from nervous to comfortable to downright angry when the guys took things too far. It was great to see the range of emotions he had to emit.   

Tyler Alexander’s Junior was easy going and happy in his own world. I loved how he could lighten up a scene when they would start to go dark.  

Taylor Leron’s AJ was smooth. He took everything that was going on very calmly and was a great friend to Pharus.  

Evan Hamilton’s David was stressing out a lot. You could feel the nerves coming from him even when he didn’t have anything to say. I could feel his exasperation, and then after the shower scene, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Hamilton was great at portraying David’s hardships.  

So, after the show, Sa’Teh Hampton told us about the audition process and mentioned that he thought he was there to add in some oohs and aahs and ended up getting Pharus role, even though this was his first ever role. On top of that, he had three weeks to learn it all. Well, I’m glad we learned all of that AFTER the show, because he was amazing! I would have never guessed that he had acted before this time. He held his own with the rest of the seasoned actors, and I was even more impressed after he told us about his experience with this show.  

Again, look for a couple of follow up articles with the two different talkbacks after the show. There was so much insight that I couldn’t add it here, but I loved getting to know the thought process behind all of it.  

For tickets, visit their website at linktr.ee/thestudiotheatre.   

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