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 About
the Play
"That
Serious He-Man Ball" is the game men play on the court and
with each other. Three friends — one very employed, one barely
employed, and one unemployed — meet for a game of hoops and
shooting the breeze. At times hilarious and always probing, ‘He
Man’ pushes the boundaries of male friendships where no play
has gone before. Whereas the play rings true today, it was developed
and given its world premiere almost 20 years ago by Atlanta’s
Jomandi Productions, where Marsha Jackson-Randolph was also its
first director. Following that premiere, He-Man Ball generated excitement
about the play and playwright in theatre centers around the country.
New York’s American Place Theatre mounted a critically acclaimed
production in 1988, as did the Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC)
in 1990 with support from actress Jasmine Guy. Other lead-ing African
American theatres including The Oakland Ensemble Theatre and The
Ensemble brought "He-Man" to the stage (1992). Four years
ago, the playwright directed the play in his native Baltimore. LaMont
has updated today’s references and turned up the court interplay
and the emotional stakes. All the moments earlier audiences remember
are there. LaMont shoots! The audience scores!
About
the Playwright
Alonzo D. LaMont, Jr., received his masters in playwrighting
from the University of Iowa. He enjoyed success with numerous
early works including "The Black Play" and "Twenty-first
Century Outs and Back," but "He-Man,"
one of the most produced of his early work, became the play to
thrust him into the limelight of regional theatres in a major
way. The LATC production of "He-Man," drew the attention
of producers of "A Different World," the TV series,
and landed him a half-season as a staff writer on the show. In
the years immediately following, major regional theatres —
"The Goodman," Washington’s Arena Stage, Seven
Stages, among them, and Theatre De Brakke Grond, in Amsterdam
Holland, would produce "Vivesections from the Blown Mind,"
and "Life Go Boom" — his other works with a ‘cutting
edge’ view of pop culture and media exploitation. ‘Vivesections’
was published by TCG and LaMont would be among the first in a
new generation of playwrights to push the language, presentation,
and subject matter of Black plays from domesticity into a hip,
urbanized, multimedia world.
Download
Playbill
(PDF format, 80 K)
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