Off-B'way Reviews: Saturday Church; House of McQueen; Jamie Allan's Amaze!

J. Harrison Ghee and Bryson Battle in
Saturday Church.
Credit: Marc J. Franklin

While it feels a bit like an Afterschool TV Special, Saturday Church, the new Off-Broadway musical celebrating LGBTQ youth, is fun, infectious, and lively, and could very well follow the path of Rent, another New York Theater Workshop production, and make a Broadway transfer. The story is achingly familiar, but there is so much joy here, the predicability of the plot really doesn’t matter.

Based on the 2017 independent film with a cliched but compassionate book by the film’s screenwriter Damon Cardasis and Pulitzer Prize winner James Ijames (Fat Ham), Saturday Church employs the tried and true trope of an alienated outsider kid finding self-acceptance and community and delivers enough zest and zip to overcome its flaws. African-American teen Ulysses (a vibrant Bryson Battle) longs to join his church choir, but his starchy Aunt Rose (intense Joaquina Kalukango) forbids it, claiming his flamboyant mannerisms are “too much” for the congregation. At home, Ulysses is dealing with the recent death of his loving dad and the frequent absence of his hard-working mom Amara (tender, conflicted Kristolyn Lloyd), struggling to make ends meet as a nurse. 

In a parallel story, Ebony (a sizzling and buoyant B Noel Thomas) is grieving the suicide of her friend Sasha and feeling overwhelmed as the organizer of Saturday Church, a weekly gathering for trans and gay youth who are experiencing little if any family support. Serving as a sort of supernatural narrator is Black Jesus (played with sparkling panache by J. Harrison Ghee), a fabulous non-binary deity figure. In a clever case of double casting, Ghee also plays the conservative pastor of Ulysses’ church. Ghee was so convincing in both roles, I didn’t realize it was the same performer until the intermission when I checked the program.

Off-B'way Update: Public Theater 2024-25 Season

Cara Ricketts, Joel Ashur, and Johnny Ramey
in Good Bones at the Studio Theater
in Washington, DC.
Credit: Margot Schulman

Yet another Gatsby, a new play by Pulitzer Prize winner James Ijames, four short pieces by Caryl Churchill, and the reopening of the Delacorte in Central Park are among the offerings in the Public Theater's 2024-25 season. 

The season opens with the North American premiere of Belvoir St Theater's Counting and Cracking by S. Shakthidharan about a Sri Lakan-Australian family from 1964-2004. Sept. 6-22 (opening Sept. 12) at the NYU Skirball Center.

Good Bones by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright James Ijames (Fat Ham) follows Sept. 19-Oct. 13 (opens Oct. 1).  A work opportunity to revitalize the blighted neighborhood she grew up in has led Aisha and her chef husband Travis to buy and renovate a charming old house. But as everyone knows, renovation is expensive and stressful—both for buildings and the communities that surround them. Aisha's young contractor Earl grew up in the area too, but his memories are of more than just dangerous streets and hollowed-out homes. The Public's Associate Artistic Director Saheem Ali directs this New York premiere play about community, change, and the soul of our cities.

Australian playwright David Finnigan will star in his solo play Deep History combining 75,000 years of human history and his personal experience with the deadly brush fires which consumed his home town of Camberra. (Oct. 5-27, opens Oct. 10).