Topdog/Underdog at Vanguard Theater

Vanguard Theater opens its 10th Anniversary Season with Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog, a Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece that dives deep into brotherhood, survival, and the weight of history on the present.

Named with cruel irony by their absent father, brothers Lincoln and Booth struggle to find their footing and sense of identity in a world stacked against them. As they navigate love, rivalry, and survival, their relationship becomes a mirror reflecting the haunting cycles of poverty, violence, and hope that shape their lives.

At once sharp, funny, and devastating, Topdog/Underdog is a raw, poetic exploration of who gets to win, who gets to survive, and what it costs.

Directed by marcus d harvey, this gripping production invites audiences into a world rarely seen yet deeply human — one that asks us to look closer at the systems, struggles, and bonds that define so much of the Black male experience in America.