Chris Rock back in ‘Mother.... With the Hat’ at L.A. Theatre Works

Chris Rock will reprise his Broadway debut role in Stephen Adly Guirgis’ “The Mother.... With the Hat” for six performances at L.A. Theatre Works, Jan. 31 to Feb. 2. The production will be a radio theater staging recorded in front of live audiences for later broadcast.

Rock will join other members of the original Broadway cast, including Bobby Cannavale and Elizabeth Rodriguez. Guirgis wrote the comedy about a former drug dealer (Cannavale) who learns to re-adjust to life outside of prison with the help of a counselor (Rock).

As previously announced, Guirgis’ play will make its local debut at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa in a production directed by Michael John Garcés, Jan. 6 to 27.

The play was developed at the Ojai Playwrights Conference before it opened on Broadway last year at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. The production received six Tony Award nominations, including a nod for for best play.

Guirgis expressed his displeasure over a 2011 regional production of the play at TheaterWorks in Hartford, Conn. As reported by the Hartford Courant, the playwright objected to the casting of non-Latino actors in the roles of two Puerto Rican characters. (The Broadway production featured a different cast than the Hartford staging.)

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