Casting has been announced for Danny Lee Wynter’s new play BLACK SUPERHERO, directed by Co-Artistic Director Designate of the RSC Daniel Evans.
Ben Allen, Dyllón Burnside, Dominic Holmes, Eloka Ivo, Danny Lee Wynter, Ako Mitchel and Rochenda Sandall will perform in the production which will run at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs from Tuesday 14 March to Saturday 29 April 2023, with press night on Tuesday 21 March 2023, 7pm.
Emmy Award-winner Dyllón Burnside, star of Netflix’s Pose and Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, will make his London debut as the eponymous black superhero of Lee Wynter’s play.
A new publicity photo has also been released today featuring Danny Lee Wynter. Ajamu X is a dark room/fine art photographer who exhibits in museums, galleries and alternative spaces worldwide. His work unapologetically celebrates black queer bodies, the erotic senses, pleasure as activism and difference. He is the co-founder of rukus! Black LGBTQ+ Archive and a leading specialist in Black LGBTQ+ history, heritage and queer cultural memory in the UK. His work can currently be seen at Tate Britain and Charleston.
This debut play by Danny Lee Wynter, known for his Olivier Award-nominated acting career, is a brutal, unflinching and funny portrait of one man’s life spiraling out of control, in an age where our idols are Kings and our superheroes Gods. Daniel Evans’ direction sees the culmination of a 20-year working relationship between himself and Danny Lee Wynter, and his first time directing for the Royal Court Theatre.
Danny Lee Wynter said: “I am deeply honoured that the Royal Court has chosen to stage my debut play, BLACK SUPERHERO. I feel lucky to have this extraordinarily accomplished group of artists come together to tell this story about a messy, funny, complicated, often savage group of queer friends who drive a man towards his own journey of healing and self acceptance. I wanted to write a big, epic story that asks difficult questions about who and where we are.
BLACK SUPERHERO is a love letter to the theatre. A subversion of the historical notion that a black, gay man – both in art and the world – is merely an adjunct, a side-note, an unserious man or a source only of amusement. He can, of course, be fun, but he’s also many other things; things the world has made him; things he has learnt to be for his own survival. I wanted to place him front and centre at the heart of the kind of narrative that many of us brown boys who like men have, for the most part, been culturally starved of since we entered the world. I have tried to present his myriad flaws, his fears, his sensuality, his intimate desires. To celebrate him, and those like him, by ultimately allowing him to own all of it; by becoming the hero of his own story.
BLACK SUPERHERO is designed by Olivier Award-winner Joanna Scotcher, with costume design by Kinnetia Isidore, lighting design by Ryan Day and sound design by Tingying Dong. The movement director is Gerrard Martin, the intimacy coordinator is Yarit Dor and the assistant director is Matthew Iliffe. The associate costume designer/costume supervisor is Zoë Thomas-Webb.
There will be a post-show talk with Danny Lee Wynter on Tuesday 28 March 2023.
