{"id":148829,"date":"2026-02-03T08:49:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T08:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/148829\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T08:49:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T08:49:30","slug":"dtc-takes-its-turn-to-serve-some-fat-ham-in-dallas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/148829\/","title":{"rendered":"DTC takes its turn to serve some \u2018Fat Ham\u2019 in Dallas"},"content":{"rendered":"

RICH LOPEZ | Staff writer
Rich@DallasVoice.com<\/a><\/p>\n

To slay or not to slay \u2014 That may be the question Juicy asks in Fat Ham. The regional premiere of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by James Ijames opened at Stage West in association with Dallas Theater Center last August. Now on Friday, DTC gets its turn to present the play at the Kalita Humphreys Theater where the show will run through Feb. 8.<\/p>\n

In Fat Ham, Ijames\u2019 story puts a new spin on Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet that\u2019s Black and queer and centers on a character named Juicy.<\/p>\n

But it also flips the script.<\/p>\n

\u201cJuicy\u2019s trying really hard to break those family curses here,\u201d lead actor Tyler Lewis (they\/them) said about their role ahead of Friday\u2019s opening night.<\/p>\n

In Fat Ham, Juicy\u2019s navigating life as a queer Black man in his Deep South family. And his family is just the worst: His mother marries his uncle; his dead father haunts him, and Juicy is just trying to be fabulous.<\/p>\n

And for his own sake and joy, Juicy may just have to defy his father\u2019s demands for revenge.
Lewis said that while there is some drama here, don\u2019t expect the heaviness of Shakespeare\u2019s actual Hamlet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s both a comedy and drama,\u201d they said. \u201cSince day one, I keep breaking character because it\u2019s just so hilarious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis also relates to the character \u2014 almost, perhaps, a little too much. Character and actor, as Lewis describes them, could almost be mirror images of each other. This helps put the actor at ease in embodying the character.<\/p>\n

\u201cJuicy\u2019s story parallels my life,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cHe is a plus-sized queer person from the South. He\u2019s from a small town, as am I. He grew up different and misunderstood, just like I did,\u201d they said. \u201cThe only difference is that he is very dark and somber, which is the opposite of me. I\u2019m usually very jovial and happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the cast heads into these Dallas performances, actor Zachary J. Willis (he\/him), who reprises his role as Tio, made his debut at Stage West at last summer\u2019s regional premiere. But now, as a member of DTC\u2019s Brierly Resident Acting Company, he is back on home turf. That adds a certain comfort as he revisits his character.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing back to him now feels different in a good way. I leaned into his humor and energy. I\u2019m not just relying on the jokes,\u201d Willis said. \u201cI\u2019m asking why he uses uncomfortable or sexual humor to defuse the tensions of family expectations, identity, the inheritance they\u2019ve been handed and the choices they have to make because of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cTio really wants to help, he just doesn\u2019t always have the language.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juicy\u2019s father demands anger and violence from his son, but Juicy sees things differently. Lewis related to that.<\/p>\n

And like Juicy, Lewis is trying to break their own cycles. With their own story growing up country, they had expectations thrust upon them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were all expected to do sports, and I grew up raising pigs and did FFA (Future Farmers of America) and the like. But that just wasn\u2019t my thing,\u201d they said. \u201cAll the men are expected to take over, and the focus was on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis continued, \u201cJuicy and I grew up watching what not to be, even though they were deciding who I will be. I aspired to be something different, so I began making an active decision to follow my own dreams and aspirations, regardless and in spite of what\u2019s expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

In short, that\u2019s the lesson Fat Ham offers.<\/p>\n

So, with such similar and parallel lives, would Lewis and Juicy be besties?<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, yes and no,\u201d Lewis said with a laugh. \u201cI\u2019m a person who\u2019s drawn to people who need people. They may be broken down or beat up, and I get pulled into that, wanting to be positive. But then, with Juicy, I know I\u2019d also have to be like \u2018Girl, get up!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Tio has his own issues as Willis points out. While Tio is in Juicy\u2019s orbit, the character does have a depth that Willis has mined. On stage, Tio chases fame, particularly convinced he could kill it on OnlyFans. Willis, though, sees something more in his character.<\/p>\n

\u201cTio\u2019s chase might seem funny or easy to brush off, but underneath is curiosity, autonomy and real freedom. His interest in something like OnlyFans is less about fame and more about choosing pleasure,\u201d Willis explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the core of it, Tio just wants freedom, and he\u2019s working on himself and trying to open things up for the people around him, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2024, Willis starred in DTC\u2019s world premiere of I Am Delivered\u2019T, another play focused, much like Fat Ham, intensely on the Black queer experience. The two are distinctly different, but Willis has explored the significance of such stories onstage.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery character has their own crayon box. Having a broad range and different textures is what makes acting exciting for me,\u201d Willis said. \u201cWhen I look at characters like Pickles in I Am Delivered\u2019T and Tio in Fat Ham, I see a real connection in how Black and queer stories show up onstage, often using humor to usher in truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cOften, the queer characters I play are less about how they see themselves and more about how the world of the story sees them and how they deal with those perceptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not even sure Tio would identify himself as queer, but in this play, queerness is something many of the characters are discovering as freedom. It is less about labels and more about learning how to move toward honesty, pleasure and choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis says it\u2019s important to remember that these are Black stories first.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are just all from a queer lens, and you don\u2019t see that often at the theater forefront,\u201d they said. \u201cHaving these stories is so important to show we exist. I\u2019m an example of it. It\u2019s more important now to have these stories onstage that strike back at those against us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis hasn\u2019t just found a safe space in Juicy, but also in the theater\u2019s cast and crew. Lewis said they\u2019ve struggled to find Black forward shows. Here, they are loving that the entire cast and crew are Black \u2014 or as they describe it, \u201cThis is a Black-ass show.\u201d<\/p>\n

They continued, \u201cThat\u2019s so crucial in telling Black stories, but also, it feels like being at home. We all get each other; we speak the same language and [director] vickie washington has cultivated a great environment and our dramaturg Harold Steward has done fantastic work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing to be surrounded by all this Black excellence.\u201d <\/p>\n

For tickets, visit DallasTheaterCenter.org.<\/a> Excerpts of this story were published previously.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RICH LOPEZ | Staff writerRich@DallasVoice.com To slay or not to slay \u2014 That may be the question Juicy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,17884,48796,55555,62023,1183,22558,2039,6529,2040,40796,62024,62025],"class_list":["post-148829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-dallas-theater-center","tag-fat-ham","tag-hamlet","tag-james-ijames","tag-lgbtq","tag-queer","tag-rich-lopez","tag-stage","tag-stage-notes","tag-stage-west","tag-tyler-lewis","tag-zachary-willis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}