‘People go, ‘queer, Black’, they don’t go deeper’: Tarell Alvin McCraney on his enduring play Choir Boy

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 , 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 that as “fluid and expressive”.