Story/Teller Arts: James Ijames on Fat Ham

On the heels of Fat Ham’s critically acclaimed Broadway run, James Ijames joins The Center for Fiction for a rich conversation on his inventive, poignant, and hilarious play. In Fat Ham, Juicy—a young, queer, Southern man grappling with questions of identity—is visited by the ghost of his father at his mother’s wedding/family barbecue, and ordered to avenge his murder. Winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Fat Ham is an “outstanding transformation of Shakespeare’s tragedy into a play about Black masculinity and queerness” that “echoes Hamlet and finds a language beyond it” (New York Times).