While Rajiv Joseph’s play King James is named after LeBron James, the basketball player figures in the show only indirectly. Rather, Joseph focuses on a friendship between two men—Shawn (Glenn Davis) and Matt (Chris Perfetti)—who bond over the star of their city’s sports team. “At least in the sort of heteronormative world in which I grew up, it was a struggle for young American men to communicate emotion,” Joseph told The New York Times. “Sometimes a love of the game is the only way people who have difficulty expressing their feelings are able to articulate them.” The show debuted at the Steppenwolf in Chicago and has now landed in Los Angeles. Like a basketball game, it’s divided into quarters, and it moves from James’s rookie season with the Cleveland Cavaliers, in 2003, to the year 2016, when he won the championship with the team. Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon directs. —Jensen Davis