The Charles R Drew Prep School for Boys, the setting for Tarell Alvin McCraney’s production Choir Boy, doesn’t resemble a typical American boarding school, usually full of children of Wasp families. Rather, the school is an all-Black, all-male academy where the main character, Pharus, a young Black queer singer, hopes to excel as his school’s choir lead, before being thwarted by the politics of conformity. To become a “Drew man” requires relinquishing any kind of individuality; the school demands its students contort themselves to fit its moral ideal of what a Black man should be.
McCraney, co-writer of the Oscar-winning film Moonlight, first wrote the script for Choir Boy in 2012, following the murder of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. The play had its premiere at the Royal Court theatre in London, before being performed in New York and across the US. It is now being staged in a major new revival at the Bristol Old Vic that the Guardian describes as “fluid and expressive”.
