GableStage’s ‘Fat Ham’ in the Miami Herald

Maybe the seemingly long haul on I-95 made treacherous by traffic congestion creates the Miami-Dade County and Broward County division among its residents. While there are plenty of reasons someone from one county or the other will say they don’t venture north or south, arts groups are well aware there’s a definite line in the sand.

So, when three professional theater companies, two from Broward and one from Miami-Dade, came together to collaborate on the production of James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning “Fat Ham,” it was, in no uncertain terms, heralded as a historic partnership.

Then there was a fourth cog in the wheel, the Fort Lauderdale-based Warten Foundation that wanted to support the newly formed theater trinity of Wilton Manors’ Island City Stage, Pompano Beach’s Brévo Theatre, and Coral Gables’ GableStage, with a $250,000 grant to help fund the South Florida premiere of “Fat Ham.”

“Fat Ham” opened at Island City Stage on Friday, April 3 and ran through Sunday, May 4. Now it moves to GableStage, opening Friday, May 16 and running through Sunday, June 15.

A modern interpretation of Wiliam Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” set at a Southern Black family’s backyard barbecue, the playwright, originally from North Carolina, creates parallel’s between the classic play as Juicy, a 20-year-old gay Black man living in the South is visited by the ghost of his father asking him to avenge his death, Pap, Juicy’s father, says his brother had him killed so that he could marry his widow and take over the family business.

Bari Newport, producing artistic director of GableStage, had plans to produce “Fat Ham.” She says she obtained the rights to stage the show but hadn’t moved forward in putting it on GableStage’s season calendar.

“I was sitting on the rights,” she says.” It’s an incredible piece of writing and it isn’t a Pulitzer Prize winner for nothin.’ But I wanted to partner with the right director.” Newport received a call from the licensing agent at Concord Theatricals, explaining that another theater company “about 30 miles away” wanted to present “Fat Ham.”

“They didn’t think that would be a problem because, quote, we didn’t share an audience. And I said, ‘Well, I think it is a problem,’ and I asked who the company was.” When the agent said Island City Stage, Newport’s wheels started turning. What if the two companies did it together somehow? “Why say no to their production when I could just say yes to our production?”