When concocting a week-long celebration for the return of The NBA, I came across one issue. Every Sunday I do my best to dedicate one entry to live theater: a personal passion of mine that I greatly miss just as much as those live games. Despite both being this breath of spontaneous fresh air, they haven’t overlapped nearly as much as I’d like. There is no masterpiece for basketball musicals. Baseball has Damn Yankees. Soccer has Bend It Like Beckham. Even cheerleading has Bring It On. What exactly does basketball have?
I know that I could’ve covered something like Lysistrata Jones, Magic/Bird, or That Championship Season, but I worried that there wouldn’t be enough to really discuss. After all, with exception to the latter-most, none of them are genuine hits that have withstood the test of time. Also, given that it’s a traditional drama, I would need resources to see it to properly assess its merits.
Researching for this column was difficult, though I eventually came across one of the strangest things imaginable. I am disappointed to report that there’s even less available to watch and assess of Small Ball, but it felt like the perfect way to celebrate The NBA. Whereas these other shows only loosely have ties to basketball’s biggest organization, the more that I read up on Small Ball the more I realized that it’s the exact thing that interested me.
Before I get into what it’s about, I thought that I would open with a few notes on its most obvious tie to The NBA: Daryl Morey. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the GM of The Houston Rockets. You know, the one who almost started a boycott in China after he came out in support of protestors just last year. In general, he’s been beloved, but if anyone kicked off the 2019-2020 season with a firey note, it was him. To make matters worse, this came days after The Rockets murdered The Shanghai Sharks in a preseason game by over 50 points.
I had no thoughts on Morey outside of this moment, mostly thinking that he was a loudmouth, managing to be one of the few whose voices were as dominant for the franchise as James “Giannis isn’t MVP” Harden. In fact, that’s why I had to do a double-take when I found out that he had ANY involvement in theater.
He didn’t just create a musical as this personal project. He commissioned it as a member of The Catastrophic Theater, located in Houston, TX. He’s been involved with a lot of their work over the years and in 2018 he launched this show. I imagine that if you watched The Jump or something he would’ve given an interview about it at the time, trying to draw attention to this production that he had so much passion for. There’s no doubt that it gave the show a lingering relevance that it wouldn’t without his name.
Who wouldn’t want to see a show produced by a GM Manager? Okay, that sounds a bit facetious on the surface but it’s the type of novelty that I’m drawn to. I want to know why this project was so special. Why was this the one that needed to be moved from the rough draft pile into full production? There had to be a reason that this story appealed enough that Morey personally believed that he could make it into a hit. Now it’s only been two years so its Off-Broadway status isn’t something to scoff at, especially since a pandemic is keeping it from any revival anytime soon.
Still, what IS Small Ball?
If you are familiar with The Rockets over the past few years (and most obviously this season), they are The NBA’s small ball team. This means that they don’t spread out and play the whole court with the same advantages that every other team would. By playing close together without any major outside players, they are playing a smaller version of the game. While it makes sense to laugh at this strategy, I do think that the triple threat of Harden, Russell Westbrook, and Robert Covington stands a chance for a dark horse favorite (you can laugh at me later, I know they’re a longshot to win).
But no, this isn’t the small ball of Small Ball. It’s actually an even kookier, less conventional version of basketball that has a bit of a humorous premise. The story shares more in common with Jonathan Swift’s 1726 masterpiece “Gulliver’s Travels” than The Rockets’ current line-up. It’s because, get this, it’s a story about people on the Lilliput Island trying to start a team called The Existers. They hire a player named Michael Jordan (not that one), their coach is Phil Jackson and features a supporting character named Pippen. Again, none of them are “that one.” It’s all just some inside joke that I hope makes sense within the confines of the show.
If you know “Gulliver’s Travels” or simple puns, The Existers are made up of people that are minuscule, ant-sized. They can’t dribble a regulation-sized basketball because they’d get squished. Throughout the musical, they find regular-sized interviewers asking The Existers questions at different tables. It plays with perspectives, such as The Existers throwing a giant ball only for it to hit the regular-sized characters as a normal ball. The humor is very optics-driven, and I’m sure it’s delightful within the context of the show.
This whole project sounds strange until you begin talking to Morey. While it’s been a common belief that the lands of sports and theater never mixed, here is one example. He was a theater geek in high school, citing a production of Les Misérables for invoking love for the stage in him. He has gone on to joke that if he could, he would personally move to New York and just watch a bunch of shows. He loves the arts and seems to treat it like a side hustle, keeping it alive in his own special way.
While he collaborated on the creation of Small Ball, credit should be given to those who actually brought it to fruition. Mickle Maher wrote the books and lyrics while Anthony Barilla and Merel van Dijk handled the music. The production process treated it like he does organizing The Rockets. Morey went through endless songs sent to him, looking for the right voices for the project. It was whittled down to its final line-up, eventually producing a team that he personally felt confident in.
To provide some discretion, there’s not a lot of available marketing material for Small Ball. While there are interviews and reviews that detail the production, there aren’t full productions recorded that I can analyze. Similarly, YouTube only has 2 of the 17 songs available for public consumption.
I know that I am not getting a full picture, though I feel some confidence in saying that it definitely strikes me as a cute small theater production. With limited means, Small Ball is brought to life with all of these clever ideas that flourish in minimalism. Obviously, the music doesn’t have the operatic accomplishments of its Broadway counterparts. Even then, the cast recording has a crisp quality that allows the music to stand out on its own.
This isn’t to say that I love it, but I am crushed by how little I have to work with. The only two songs, “Sex With Giants” and “New World,” have this peppy personality. The former seems to be the bigger draw, reflecting The Existers trying to justify their existence alongside Michael Jordan. There are some silly jokes. “New World” is more of a longing song, desiring to find a place where you belong. By themselves, these songs are quaint and reflect a lot of effort put into having a good time.
That is also the vibe that I get from the various reviews. Websites like The Ringer aren’t that critical of the show. If they have anything to say, it’s that it’s both strange and endearing in equal measure. It all builds to some bizarre and heartwarming culmination that they call “entertaining.” I can see that, even as another website calls it a great basketball musical that’s not about basketball. If anything, it’s good press that maybe gives it legs to come back when the pandemic is over. Then again, it ran from April 6 to May 13, 2018, and it seemed to disappear after that.
Who knows what the future of Small Ball is, if it’s one of those strange one-offs that never came to be.
Still, I’m a bit confused about why the only true basketball musicals often are not about the sport. As I mentioned, my alternate choice Lysistrata Jones was more about adapting the Greek comedy to a modern era than giving some profound commentary on the sport. They all exist in these abstract worlds. There’s nothing wrong with that in theater, especially as some of the greatest shows are about escapism. It’s just that the options feel piecemeal compared to Damn Yankees or Bring It On where the draw is clearly there.
Would I want to see Small Ball? I personally would love to see more marketing for the show before I commit. At The Catastrophic Theater, tickets were a pay anything price with the lowest being $10, the average $40, and the highest $100. I would rank my willing price midway between the first two, especially since it hasn’t really developed a reputation. The songs are good, but I need more of a draw. Maybe I just need to see more work by Maher, Barilla, and van Dijk. I don’t know.
With that said, I am glad to see Morey using his position to forward the arts in his own way. If he believed in this project, I’m sure he has every reason to make it the best that he can. Still, I’m curious to know if anything comes of this show. After all, Be More Chill took four years to make it to Broadway, and Small Ball is only two years old. There’s room for things to change with some fine-tuning. It’s hard to say, but I do love how weird and out there the concept is, making me believe that it could be much better than I’m giving it credit for.
With that said, I wish that there was a truly great NBA musical to reference if just to kill time until the season starts on Thursday. I need those tunes to get me pumped up. “Sex With Giants” will make me laugh, but it won’t make me anticipate. But I guess that’s life sometimes. It’s the little things that make it interesting.
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