That Championship Season

From time to time, we here at bumpershine put in a plug or two for the “legitimate theater”, and when I heard about the Broadway revival of That Championship Season starring Brian Cox, Jim Gaffigan, Chris Noth, Jason Patric and Kiefer Sutherland, I couldn’t resist spilling a little digital ink over it.

On the anniversary of their victory in the Pennsylvania state championship game, four members of the starting lineup of a small-town Catholic high school basketball team gather with their coach to re-live their youthful glory. As the night progresses, the long buried grudges and secrets of the once-confident players surface, threatening not just their solidarity, but the meaning of their victory. With savage humor, That Championship Season probes the darkest aspects of the American dream of success at all costs. In his original review of the play in the New York Times, Clive Barnes wrote, “Wow! This is precisely the kind of relevant and hard-hitting play that Broadway should be doing if it has any chance of survival. That Championship Season is Broadway theatre at its finest.”

Tickets for That Championship Season are on Amex presale now until December 10 at 11:59PM ET. Previews begin at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on February 9, 2011 in advance of a March 6, 2011 opening.

In other related news, TKTS, the perennial Times Square tourist trap, now has its very own official iPhone app. You can’t purchase discounted tickets directly from the app, but it will tell you what’s available for purchase and the current level of discount TKTS is offering at its Brooklyn, South St Seaport and Times Square booths.