KING JAMES

by Rajiv Joseph
directed by Monteze Freeland
April 19 – May 11, 2025
Basketball legend LeBron James is the undeclared king of Cleveland, Ohio. Taking place over twelve years, from LeBron’s rookie season through the 2016 NBA Championship, King James is a buddy comedy that tracks the unlikely friendship of two super fans and examines the bonds that sports can create in an “intensely watchable and astutely observed” (The New York Times) new play.

A co-production with the Cleveland Playhouse.

 Rajiv Joseph’s play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama and also awarded a grant for Outstanding New American Play by the National Endowment for the Arts. He has twice won the Obie Award for Best New American Play, first in 2016 with Guards at the Taj (also a 2016 Lortel Winner for Best Play) and then in 2018 with Describe the Night.  Other plays include King James, Letters of Suresh, Archduke, Gruesome Playground Injuries, Animals Out of Paper, The Lake Effect, The North Pool and Mr. Wolf. Joseph has been awarded artistic grants from the Whiting Foundation, United States Artists and the Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.  He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal.