Fresh and engaging.
—SF Chronicle
A terrific TheatreWorks production. Remarkable.
— The Mercury News
Plenty of comedy.... Charming.
— BroadwayWorld

King James

REGIONAL PREMIERE

Oct 9–Nov 3, 2024

By RAJIV JOSEPH
Directed by GIOVANNA SARDELLI
In Rajiv Joseph’s brilliant and slam-dunk new comedy, superfans Matt and Shawn forge a friendship through a shared love of their hometown Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James. Spanning 12 years from James’ 2004 rookie season to 2016 NBA championship, tensions mount both on and off the court for the duo in this honest exploration of love, grace, and the power of a good game to bring people together.

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Photos: Kevin Berne, 2024

Special Events & Accessible Performances

Join TheatreWorks for a pre-show discussion with TheatreWorks Artistic Director Giovanna Sardelli and an artist from the production. In this free event, peer behind the scenes and learn more about the process of bringing King James to life.
  • Thursday, October 10, 2024 @ 6:30 – 7:15 pm (in the balcony)
  • Wednesday, October 16, 2024 @ 7:30pm
  • Wednesday, October 30, 2024 @ 7:30pm
  • Saturday, November 2, 2024 @ 8pm
  • Sunday, November 3, 2024 @ 2pm
  • Sunday, October 27, 2024 @ 2pm
  • Sunday, October 27, 2024 @ 7pm
  • Wednesday, October 30, 2024 @ 2pm
  • Tuesday, October 22, 2024 @ 7:30pm
  • Friday, October 18, 2024 @ 8pm
  • Saturday, October 19, 2024 @ 2pm
  • Sunday, October 27, 2024 @ 2pm

Cast

KENNY SCOTT*

KENNY SCOTT'S (Shawn, He/Him) recent credits include productions with A Distinct Society (TheatreWorks Silicon Valley), Paradise Blue (Aurora Theatre Company), Lear (Cal Shakes), Two Trains Running (Marin Theatre Company), Inked Baby, SUBVERiTas (Crowded Fire), The Institute for Counterfeit Memory (ZSpace),  Mystery of Love and Sex (The New Conservatory Theatre Center), Sarafael (The Forum), Port Stories (Idiot String), and Ageless (Quantum Dragon Theatre). He is an Artistic Company member with the Oakland Theatre Project (Hamlet, Mother Courage) as well as Shotgun Players (The Claim, The Light). He attended Morgan State University, and was a member of the Laney College Fusion Theatre Project.

JORDAN LANE SHAPPELL*

JORDAN LANE SHAPPELL (Matt) is thrilled to be making his TheatreWorks debut and first show in the Bay! Previous credits include: The Real Thing (Writers Theatre), Be a Good Little Widow (NoHo Theater), How To Quit (Meta Theatre), Henry V (Meta Theatre), Journeys of Identity (National Theatre of the Deaf), Blood Wedding (Merle Reskin Theatre) Dancing at Lughnasa (Merle Reskin Theatre), Sea Plays (Merle Reskin Theatre), Day in the Death of Joe Egg (dir. Larry Moss). Film and TV credits include The Orville (FOX), Abigail before Beatrice (dir. Cassie Keet), SCREAM: Fan Favorite (dir. Tyler Hansen), First Circle (dir. Mark Chapman). He would like to thank his wife, his family and his namesake Michael Jordan.

CREATIVE TEAM

RAJIV JOSEPH, Playwright

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, The North Pool, Gruesome Playground Injuries and Animals Out of Paper.  He wrote the book and co-wrote lyrics for the musical Fly, based on Peter Pan, and he wrote the libretto for the opera Shalimar the Clown, based on the novel by Salman Rushdie.  He has written for TV and film and 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.

GIOVANNA SARDELLI, Director

GIOVANNA SARDELLI is the Artistic Director of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, where she was previously Director of New Works for 9 years. In addition to a robust directing career around the country, Giovanna’s TheatreWorks directing credits include Mrs. Christie, the World Premieres of A Distinct Society (Online NWF 2021), Nan and the Lower Body (NWF 2019), as well as productions of It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, They Promised Her the Moon (NWF 2018), Archduke (NWF 2016), Crimes of the Heart, The North Pool (NWF 2009), and Somewhere. Other directing credits include Describe the Night (Obie Award Best New Play, TW NWF 2014) at Atlantic Theater Co., the World Premiere of Archduke at Mark Taper Forum, and An Entomologist’s Love Story (TW NWF 2014) at San Francisco Playhouse. Sardelli directed the Marvel podcast Squirrel Girl: The Unbeatable Radio Show! which was a 2023 Webby Honoree for Best Podcast; TV & Film. Sardelli holds an MFA in Acting from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and taught in NYU’s Graduate Acting Program as well as its Dance Department for over a decade.

JEFFREY LO, Basketball DramaturgSneaker Consultant

JEFFREY LO is TheatreWorks’ Casting Director and Literary Manager, and has previously directed TheatreWorks’ productions of Tiger Style!, Little Shop of Horrors, The Language Archive and The Santaland Diaries. A Filipino-American director and playwright, his additional directing credits include Vietgone and The Great Leap at Capital Stage, The Glass Menagerie and Chinglish at San Francisco Playhouse, as well as Bald Sisters and Between Riverside and Crazy at San Jose Stage Co. He is the recipient of the Leigh Weimers Emerging Artist Award, the Arts Council Silicon Valley Emerging Artist Laureate, and Theatre Bay Area Director’s TITAN Award. In addition to his work on stage, Mr. Lo does work nationally promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion in the arts. He is a graduate of the multicultural Arts Leadership Institute and a proud alumnus of the UC Irvine Drama Department. JeffreyWritesAPlay.com

RANDALL K. LUM

RANDALL K. LUM'S (He/Him) selected TheatreWorks credits include Being Alive, Queen, How I Learned What I Learned, Steel Magnolias, In Every Generation, Nan and the Lower Body, They Promised Her The Moon, Pride and Prejudice, The 39 Steps, Archduke, Fun Home, Hold These Truths, Finks, Skeleton Crew, Around the World in 80 Days, The Prince of Egypt, Constellations, Rags, Outside Mullingar, Confederates, Fallen Angels, The Lake Effect, Peter and the Starcatcher, Other Desert Cities.  He recently stage managed Center Rep’s The Legend Of Georgia McBride and Every Brilliant Thing. Other companies: Oregon and San Francisco Shakespeare Festivals, Denver Center Theatre Company, La Jolla Playhouse, Center Theatre Group, The Old Globe, American Conservatory Theater, California Shakespeare Theater, Berkeley and Seattle Repertory Theatres, Laguna and Pasadena Playhouses, and South Coast Repertory.

CHRISTOPHER FITZER, Scenic/Costume Designer

CHRISTOPHER FITZER (He/Him) is an award-winning freelance scenic designer in the Bay Area and the Properties Director for TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. At TheatreWorks, he has designed Mrs. Christie, Little Shop of Horrors, It’s a Wonderful Life, They Promised Her the Moon, Marie & Rosetta, and The Santaland Diaries. His other design credits include productions at American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco Playhouse, Aspen Opera Theater, World Literature Today’s Puterbaugh Festival, Capital Stage, Sacramento Music Circus, San Jose Stage Company, Hillbarn Theatre, Woodminster Summer Musicals, Oklahoma City Theatre Company, Flat Rock Playhouse, Oakland Theater Project, Los Altos Stage Company, The Douglas Morrisson Theatre, Palo Alto Players, and Foothill Music Theatre. He holds a B.F.A. in Theatrical Design from the University of Oklahoma. christopherfitzer.com

GREGORY ROBINSON, Sound Design

GREGORY ROBINSON, a ‘United Scenic Artists Local USA 829, IATSE Member’, is ‘An Artist That Paints With Sound & Music’. His creative works have been featured in local, regional, and national radio and television advertising; short films; documentaries; corporate video; and theatre. His work has been featured in an Emmy award winning documentary, an HBO Special, and he has been recognized by the San Francisco Bay Area Critics Circle, with a Sound Design ‘Excellence in Theatre Award’ for Water By The Spoonful, and nominations for Proof and Two Trains Running. Gregory recently Designed and Composed Music for the Penumbra Theatre production (St. Paul Minnesota) of Wine In The Wilderness, by Alice Childress; Designed Sound and Composed Music for the Center Stage Repertory Company’s production of Every Brilliant Thing (Walnut Creek, CA); Designed Sound and Composed Music for the Penumbra Theatre production of Nambi Kelley’s play Re-Memori; Designed Sound the TheatreWorks production of Fannie, The Music And Life Of Fannie Lou Hamer (Palo Alto, CA); Composed music for the Aurora Theatre Company’s production of Dominique Morisseau’s Paradise Blue (Berkeley, CA); Designed Sound and Composed Music for The Marin Theatre Company’s production of August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, and Designed Sound for the Syracuse Stage Company’s production of Salt/City/Blues. Other TheatreWorks Sound Designs Calligraphy, Proof, Water By The Spoonful, The Mountaintop,  The Pitmen Painters, Snow Falling On Cedars, Time Stands Still, Living Out, You Can’t Take It With You, An American Daughter, Be Aggressive, Present Laughter.

STEVEN B. MANNSHARDT, Lighting Designer

STEVEN B. MANNSHARDT  has designed the lighting for over 100 productions at TheatreWorks during the past 30 years, having won numerous awards for his design work. His regional design credits include the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven; ACT Theatre in Seattle; American Repertory Theater in Cambridge; the Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo; the Magic Theater in San Francisco; and the Pasadena Playhouse. Mr. Mannshardt taught lighting design at Santa Rosa Junior College for 14 years and currently teaches lighting design, stage management, scenic art, and production at San José State University. Mr. Mannshardt also runs an international charity helping to support the educational and career needs of impoverished children and adults in Nepal. www.wwep.org.

JUDITH NIHEI, Artist Counsler

JUDITH NIHEI is a San Francisco-based licensed psychotherapist in private practice. She has been a theatre director, dramaturg, writer, actor, and administrator. A founding member of Seattle’s Northwest Asian American Theatre, she returned home to work with San Francisco’s Asian American Theatre Company and began a long career in improv with The Committee. She continues her improv career as one of The Bad Aunties.

JONATHAN RIDER, Fight Director

JONATHAN RIDER (Fight Director) has been choreographing fights nationally and internationally for over 30 years, with 17 productions at TheatreWorks, including Ragtime, Gem of the Ocean, Archduke, Cyrano, Of Mice and Men, The Prince of Egypt, The Four Immigrants, Water by the Spoonful, and Superior Donuts. His 30 credits for American Conservatory Theater include Hamlet, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and The Orphan of Zhao, for which he received a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle award. He was the Resident Fight Director for the San Francisco Opera for 12 years. He has also directed fights for Gran Teatro Del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain (Tristan and Isolde); Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Italy (Faniciulla Del West); and Sante Fe Opera (including Maometto II, Wozzeck, Tosca). He holds a BA from Santa Clara University.

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

Sponsored by

VISIONARY PRODUCERS: Dr. David Gaba & Deanna Mann • Anne & Larry Hambly • Julie Kaufman & Doug Klein • Lynn Szekely

PRODUCERS: Gayle Brugler • Drs. Michael & Jane Marmor / The Marmor Foundation • Mark & Teri Vershel

venue

Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts

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Tue–Sun : 12pm–6pm