When playwright Vincent Terrell Durham attended his stepfather’s funeral nearly 15 years ago, he recalls the cascade of beautiful eulogies that were delivered, cementing the legacy of the man who raised him. There was one problem: Durham wasn’t sure who this person was that the speakers were fawning over.
As Durham further examined what the speakers recalled that he could not, a critical clue came across him in the form of a seminal memory.
Durham’s stepfather and biological father did not have a relationship, but the two men crossed paths when Durham was a young teenager. In that moment, his stepfather gave his father some tone-deaf advice.
“My stepfather was trying to convey to my father how important it is for him to come see me and spend time with me,” Durham recalled. “It was interesting because this man who didn’t care for me from the age of 4 to whatever was taking the time to tell my dad that he needed to come around more often.”
Moments like these, which serve as Durham’s exploration between a Black father and son, are the basis for the world premiere “Running After Shadows,” Durham’s one-man show opening at San Jose’s City Lights Theater Company for a three-week run beginning Jan. 24.
The story revolves around Morgan, an up-and-coming gourmet utilizing social media to build his fledgling career. As is the case with influencer culture, a typical Instagram unboxing of a new kitchen gadget leads to a live, unexpected discovery, one that brings him in direct conversation with his painful past, informed by his absent father.
The play won Theatre Bay Area’s 2025 Rella Lossy Award, given to an emerging playwright who has secured a world premiere in one of nine Bay Area counties in the coming year. Having the premiere at City Lights is fitting, considering the company originally commissioned the play in 2020. But as happens with play development, the current iteration is much more along the lines of what Durham really wanted to explore. That starts and ends with Durham’s willingness to apply “grace” to each of his fathers.
“In my opinion, my stepfather didn’t care for me because I belonged to some other man, and I believe that with all my heart,” Durham said. “And my father was just absent, you know? But at my stepfather’s funeral, it allowed me to see that he had grown, even though I hadn’t seen that. But these people who attended showed me the growth he had gone through.”
Durham is part of an explosion of works by a new wave of gay Black playwrights. He and Michael R. Jackson, Donja R. Love, James Ijames and Jordan E. Cooper, among others, are giving actors opportunities to play characters that examine the honest nature of Black love in all forms. It’s an opportunity that actor James Arthur M., who plays Morgan, embraces.
M. does not have a lot in common with the issues his character is wrestling with, but recalls the journey he went on with his dad when he came out. Despite a continued strong relationship with his father, there are certainly aspects of his life he can connect personally to Morgan’s struggles.
“Morgan is experiencing a lot of isolation, trying to find a sense of community and belonging,” M. said. “I’ve been there before, and I think that, regardless of race, any queer person is going to see a lot of themselves in this story. There’s a lot of great universality of our journey and process, of trying to survive and then move to a place where we can possibly thrive.”
The effect of Durham’s upbringing was impactful, but the playwright has created space to explore the cause in this work. The traumas that may have limited his fathers’ ability to thrive is one of the play’s most insightful examinations.
“Most of the men in this play, there’s some kind of trauma they’ve gone through and they’ve not resolved it,” Durham said. “Maybe this influenced how they acted toward the women in their lives, how they acted toward me in their life. Morgan has his own trauma, and he is working through that in the play, or at least that’s what I want him to work through in order to find a way to forgive his father.”
“Running After Shadows” runs Jan. 24-Feb. 8 at City Lights Theater Company, 529 S. Second St., in San Jose. For showtimes and tickets, visit https://cltc.org/event/shadows.
David John Chávez is a former chair of the American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association and a two-time juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (2022-23); @davidjchavez.bsky.social.