Gaston County native’s ‘Fat Ham’ play already won a Pulitzer. How’d it do at the Tonys?

The play’s the thing, wherein a Gaston County native caught mad success for “Fat Ham,” the tragic-comedic take on Hamlet set at a Southern family barbecue.

Playwright James Ijames’s show already won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama last year.

And on Sunday night at the Tony Awards, it was nominated in five categories during Broadway’s biggest night — Best Play, Best Supporting Actress in a Play (Nikki Crawford), Best Direction of a Play (Saheem Ali), Best Costume Design of a Play (Dominique Fawn Hill) and Best Lighting Design of a Play (Bradley King).

“Fat Ham” centers around a gay, insecure, overweight college kid named Juicy. Crawford plays his mom. His late father shows up as a ghost at a backyard barbecue and orders Juicy to avenge his murder. And said murderer happens to be Juicy’s uncle, who has taken up with his mom. (Sound familiar?)

As the show puts it, “Revenge is mad hard.”

And while “Fat Ham” was shut out at the Tonys, it has enjoyed quite a run of success.

It debuted in In 2021 as a digital production by Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater in the middle of COVID. Following a sold-out, off-Broadway run last year, “Fat Ham” transferred to Broadway this spring, where it was a New York Times critics pick.

For now, it’s set to close July 2. But it will return to the Wilma in November.

How a Gaston County kid grew up to win a Pulitzer — for a play set at a family cookout

On Sunday night, “Leopoldstadt,” Tom Stoppard’s searing drama about a Jewish family in Vienna during the first half of the 20th century, won the Tony for Best Play.

In the other categories that “Fat Ham” was up for, the Tony winners were: Best Lighting Design of a Play, “Life of Pi,” Tim Lutkin; Best Costume Design of a Play, “Leopoldstadt,” Brigitte Reiffensteul; Best Direction of a Play, “Leopoldstadt,” Patrick Marber, and Best Supporting Actress in a Play, “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” Miriam Silverman.

The Tony Awards, by the way, was unscripted. That was the only way the show could go on in the middle of the Writer’s Guild of America strike.

About Jamies Ijames

Ijames, who grew up in Bessemer City, lives in Philadelphia now. He’s an associate professor of theater at Villanova University, an ex-officio board member of Wilma Theater and a founding member of Orbiter 3, Philadelphia’s first playwright producing collective.

In an interview with The Charlotte Observer last year, Ijames said he could identify with Hamlet the character, “not because of what happened to him but because he was quiet, brooding, thoughtful, always trying to find the right thing to say.”

He attributed his success and his shows to his family, and to his roots in North Carolina.

“I don’t want to lose the person that I was when I was there,” Ijames said, “because I think that person has gotten me to where I am.”

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