In this Tony Award-winning Best Play, playwright Richard Greenberg celebrates the personal and professional intricacies of America's favorite pastime. When Darren Lemming (Jesse Williams), the star center fielder for the Empires, comes out of the closet, the reception off the field reveals a barrage of long-held unspoken prejudices. Facing some hostile teammates and fraught friendships, Darren is forced to contend with the challenges of being a gay person of color within the confines of a classic American institution. As the Empires struggle to rally toward a championship season, the players and their fans begin to question tradition, their loyalties, and the price of victory.
The current revival at the Hayes, produced by Second Stage Theatre and ably directed by Scott Ellis, is quite good - well-acted, smart in tone and pace, handsomely designed, with some reservations. (The Hayes is tad too small for a show of this amplitude, and David Rockwell's set feels pinched and flat. The shower scenes, for example, seem squashed downstage in a monotonous row.)
The production is, for sure, broad and embracing of an exuberant kind of theatricality, occasionally at the expense of the pace of a show that has to maintain a rush of ideas. Many of the laughs that come are as intended, but a few feel gratuitous. And the David Rockwell set is a rare disappointment from this gifted designer: there was an opportunity there to radically freshen the vistas of the work, but it offers few sharp edges and no real surprises. That said, you're watching a skilled and earnest ensemble. Adams makes for a very reliable narrator, but most of the best scenes involve the consistently superb Williams, whom you can easily believe as a real ball player and whose acting has the single quality most essential to all Greenberg plays: He never reveals too much at once.
2002 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2003 | Broadway |
Broadway Transfer Broadway |
2022 | Broadway |
Second Stage Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
2022 | Broadway |
Broadway Return Engagement Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2022 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Play | Jesse Tyler Ferguson |
2022 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Awards | Jesse Tyler Ferguson |
2022 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Awards | Jesse Williams |
2022 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | Take Me Out |
2022 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Play | Patrick J. Adams |
2022 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Director of a Play | Scott Ellis |
2022 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play | Jesse Tyler Ferguson |
2022 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play | Michael Oberholtzer |
2022 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play (Broadway or Off-Broadway) | Take Me Out |
2022 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | Jesse Tyler Ferguson |
2022 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | Michael Oberholtzer |
2022 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | Jesse Williams |
2022 | Tony Awards | Best Revival of a Play | Take Me Out |
2021 | Theatre World Awards | Theatre World Awards | Patrick J Adams |
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