black odyssey is at Classic Stage Company in winter 2022. Get black odyssey tickets in New York now.
black odyssey is a play based on Homer's classic Greek epic the Odyssey, set in present-day Harlem. That poem followed war hero Odysseus on his 10-year journey home from the Trojan War. This new play centers on Ulysses Lincoln, a contemporary soldier taking a difficult trip of his own after serving in Afghanista, hoping to reconnect with his family. But his journey is internal; he must battle vengeful gods and other supernatural beings, but also the mortal realities of being a Black American soldier, within himself. And his journey is guided not by fate, but his ancestors. Their history gradually reveals itself to Ulysses and informs his way as he journeys on.
black odyssey has taken a far-reaching journey of its own, with its New York premiere years in the making. The show premiered with the Denver Center Theatre Company in Colorado in 2014 and had a second production at California Shakespeare Theater, where the play's setting was changed to Oakland. Its 2022 New York premiere was then postponed to 2023.
black odyssey is by Marcus Gardley, who has made a career of adapting classics. His play ...And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi is adapted from the Greek myth of Persephone and Demeter, and The House That Will Not Stand, adapted from Federico García Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, won a 2019 Obie Award for playwriting.
Directing black odyssey in New York is Stevie Walker-Webb, who made his Broadway debut in 2022 directing Jordan E. Cooper's Ain't No Mo'. He previously won an Obie Award for directing that play off Broadway, and he also directed the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fairview.
Classic Stage Company hosts black odyssey off Broadway; the company is dedicated to producing revivals and new adaptations of classic stories.
Get black odyssey tickets now.
