Playwright/director Ngozi Anyanwu said she's always wanted to write two things: a fight play and a homage to her older brother, a former MMA fighter in New Jersey and Philadelphia leagues. The Monsters is both at once.

"Whenever I hung out with his fighter friends, it really just struck me how these very tough bodies could be wrestling and fighting and bleeding [...] and then hanging out and giving such great advice to each other and being so soft with each other," Anyanwu said of her inspiration for the show.

While LIL has spent years admiring her brother's career from afar, though, Anyanwu has a close relationship with her real-life brother. He saw the play's world premiere at New Jersey's Two River Theater in 2025 and gave it his stamp of approval: "'Oh, it's actually good 'cause that was kind of deep,'" Anyanwu remembered him saying, adding that he'll see the NYC production too.

Anyanwu's not the only one whose real-life sibling relationship informs her work on The Monsters. Choreographer Rickey Tripp said he's excited to bring his sister to opening night. And Aigner Mizzelle, who plays LIL, has a younger brother, but their relationship is "so different" from the characters', she said.

"I built LIL, really, from being able to work with Oak and what our brother-sister dynamic was like," she said. "Oak really is a big brother."

Okieriete "Oak" Onaodowan, who stars as BIG, is in fact one in real life. He understands "that connective tissue of having a younger sister you worry about [and] you're trying to communicate and connect with," he said. "It's very different than a best friend or a classmate. There's a specificity there that is informed by my own personal relationship with my siblings."

That's apparent from Andrew Boyce's set, made to look like a boxing gym. In the 150-seat New York City Center Stage II, everyone has a close-up view of BIG and LIL's faceoffs, both physical and emotional.

The MMA fighting, after all, isn't just for spectacle: It's what bonds the siblings, Mizzelle said. "It [lets] them get some of the words out that they don't know how to say physically, and it's what Lil [...] aspires to. It's not only a motif, but it is how they actually get to a place of bonding and finding each other again, through fighting."

Onaodowan — who has trained in jiu-jitsu, boxing, and taekwondo — echoed that idea. BIG is "secluded," he said, and not talkative; it's more natural for him to express his emotions with his body. "When he's forced to articulate himself, he's struggling. He's not really sure how. And he'd rather be doing something else like hitting people, punching somebody, training," he said.

"[Fighting is] the way he talks. LIL, his little sister, says, 'If this is the way you speak, fine. I will learn your language. I will learn how to speak this way.'"

For Tripp, fighting and theatre naturally gel. "It's all a production," he said of both disciplines. "You've got the audience, you've got the the two players. You have the coach, who is like the director. Everyone plays a specific part."

Seven-time jiu-jitsu world champion and former UFC fighter Sijara Eubanks brings her 15 years of MMA and martial arts experience to The Monsters. She came aboard during the New Jersey run, and this play marks her first time working in theatre.

Her job is to add grit and realism to Tripp and Anyanwu's stagings of the fight scenes. "It's fun working with Rickey because he adds the choreography and the flair and the dance and the rhythm," Eubanks said. "I'm just here to make it look like fighting: 'Okay, this is where you would go after that punch. This is what would normally happen if you were hit like that.' I got to flex a different type of MMA muscle that I hadn't before."

So who are the titular monsters, anyway? Anyanwu said the title is a "play on words" in that the characters aren't really "monstrous" at all.

"You'll come to the play expecting one thing: these very tough people, all this fighting, all this blood, sweat, tears," Anyanwu said. "But when you actually get to see the play, we're very much trying to subvert the idea of how you see these people [...] these very big, beautiful, strong Black bodies that a lot of people do not empathize with.

"We use the term 'monsters,'" she continued, "but when you walk into the play, you'll get the excitement, you'll get the fighting, and then you'll get something else." That something is the deeply felt family drama that packs the biggest punch of all.

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Photo credit: The Monsters off Broadway. (Photos by T. Charles Erickson)