Rajiv Joseph Selected Works

“King” LeBron James’s reign in Cleveland brings promise, prosperity and renewal to a city in desperate need of all three. It also brings together two unlikely friends in a bond forged by fandom. Told over twelve years (from LeBron's rookie season to an NBA Championship) King James is an intimate exploration of the place that sports occupy in our lives and relationships. Rajiv Joseph's clever and fast-paced comedy traces the arcs of two friends whose turbulent relationship is best navigated through their shared love of basketball—and the endless amiable arguments that erupt from that love. All the while, the promise and burden of LeBron's talent and legacy loom large.

In 1920, the Russian writer Isaac Babel wanders the countryside with the Red Cavalry. Seventy years later, a mysterious KGB agent spies on a woman in Dresden and falls in love. In 2010, an aircraft carrying most of the Polish government crashes in the Russian city of Smolensk. Set in Russia over the course of 90 years, this thrilling and epic play traces the stories of seven men and women connected by history, myth and conspiracy theories.

Three hapless and hungry young men fumble their way through history as they take on a mission of martyrdom. Are they fighting for Serb independence or a sandwich? Patriotism or pudding? With Archduke Franz Ferdinand as their target, a depraved Captain sends Gavrilo, Nedeljko, and Trifko on a darkly comedic journey towards immortality.

Shalimar and his beloved Boonyi grow up together in a pastoral Kashmiri village, making people laugh as acrobats and dancers in a traditional folk theater. They fall in love, a youthful romance that culminates in a joyful wedding. But when the new American ambassador meets Boonyi, he seduces with the promise of a new life, sending Shalimar down a dangerous path of revenge. This new opera based on the book by Salman Rushdie features a libretto by Rajiv Joseph and music by Jack Perla.

Forget the ground, forget the sky, ‘cause the more you forget the higher you will FLY! Fly, a new musical where Peter Pan flies Wendy and John on an action-packed journey to Neverland. When the trio gets separated along the way, their exciting and danger-filled adventures lead to the unexpected. With a new sound and score by Bill Sherman, Rajiv Joseph and Kirsten Childs, Fly shines a whole new light on J.M. Barrie’s classic novel ... It’s not just for kids anymore. 

Theresa is 17 years old, and she can map out the solar system. She understands the universe—how and why it came to be. She owes all that to a man named Mr. Wolf.  Now the only life she has ever known is coming to an end. She’s being taken away—turned over to people who are strangers to her.  How can they possibly understand her needs, when they seem to be lost, too?

Ty Greene is a normal guy with three very big problems. In an unprecedented (for him) run of promiscuity, Ty has managed to impregnate three women in the span of one week: His ex-girlfriend, his 40-something married next-door neighbor, and his 18 year-old student. In this edgy comedy by playwright Rajiv Joseph, Ty's problems illuminate every triumph and failure of his life, and as the women in his world converge and figure out what's happened, Ty realizes that his life is adrift, and that he only has a limited time to try to piece it back together. All This Intimacy, which according to The New York Times had "a certain can't-look-away pull," is a comedy about friendship and lust and how the two don't mix.

Receiving rave reviews for both its New York and Los Angeles productions, Rajiv Joseph's Huck & Holden tells the story of Navin, an Indian college student who's fresh off the boat and trying to remain focused on his studies while the temptations of America and college life start beating down his door. When Navin falls for Michelle, a young African-American woman, he finds that his perceptions of the world begin to expand— and crumble. Called " . . . a coming-of-age story with comedy, pathos, and a distinct emotional core," by offoffline.com, Huck & Holden is a romantic comedy that wrestles with cultural stereotypes, racism, The Kama Sutra, The Catcher in the Rye, and how losing our innocence doesn't always make us wiser.

The Leopard and the Fox is a political drama that follows the last days of Zulfiqar ali Bhutto, Pakistan's first popularly elected Prime Minister, betrayed by his closest confidante, his army chief General Zia ul Haq, who imprisoned and then executed Bhutto in 1979, installing himself as the President at the behest of the U.S. The adaptation contextualizes these historical events with Pakistan's rapidly changing political landscape.

In The Monster at the Door, the commissioning of a colossal art work for display in the lobby of a global corporation launches a surreal journey that explores the mythic power of attraction, seduction and transformation, and the events surrounding a mysterious woman whose healing touch leaves destruction and chaos.