Omz, Bilal, and Joey are friends and three young footballers at the center of “Red Pitch” at Olney Theatre Center (OTC). Acceptance by a local professional club, like the Queens Park Raiders (QPR), gives kids access to the club’s academy, a scholarship, and a potential future with one of the well-known teams like Chelsea, Arsenal, or Manchester United. It is a way out, and a way up, for many young black men living in impoverished neighborhoods in the U.K. or the U.S.…a terrific opening act...
Omz, Bilal, and Joey are friends and three young footballers at the center of “Red Pitch” at Olney Theatre Center (OTC). Acceptance by a local professional club, like the Queens Park Raiders (QPR), gives kids access to the club’s academy, a scholarship, and a potential future with one of the well-known teams like Chelsea, Arsenal, or Manchester United. It is a way out, and a way up, for many young black men living in impoverished neighborhoods in the U.K. or the U.S.
…a terrific opening act for Olney Theatre Center’s season…a brilliant creative team behind this fabulous show.…you will love the heartfelt action…
The first play of the Olney Theatre Center’s 2025-26 season is the American premiere of “Red Pitch” by Tyrell Williams. Set in a fictional South London housing project, the story follows three 16-year-olds as they enjoy their last relatively care-free days of youth before heading off into an uncertain future. As their lives are about to change, so is the neighborhood they have called home. Reedbury, aka “the endz,” is slated for redevelopment and families are anxiously anticipating the “improvements” that will come. The joyful camaraderie on the playing pitch is colored with the anxiety surrounding their families. Omz, confident, caring, and very funny as played by Angelo Harrington II, lives with his disabled grandfather. Will there be an elevator in a new and improved apartment building? Will the teens be able to return to the endz and rent a flat together or will they be priced out of a gentrified landscape? Bilal, smart yet wary (a wiry and focused Ty’ree Hope Davis), knows how difficult a football career would be. His dad was going to make it professionally but had to pull out. Joey (Terrence Griffin, charming in his professional theatre debut), the apparent leader of the three, provides direction and pushes them to prepare for the QPR trial.
Driven by fear of not being good enough to make football a career, the three young men continually challenge, joke, and push each other emotionally and physically, climaxing in a fist fight between Bilal and Omz. Fight choreographer Casey Kaleba deserves high praise for designing the punches thrown, searingly real in the intimate space of the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab. Joey helps the other two calm down telling Omz, “Just be the bigger man.”
Based on the original, award-winning London production directed by Daniel Bailey, the physicality of the play is bracing. The soccer moves, the stop-action poses between scenes, and the joyous dancing earn kudos for choreographer Siani Nicole. Dynamically enhancing the nonstop action are the lighting designed by Amith Chandrashaker and D.J. Potts vibrant sound effects—from the olés of a packed stadium imagined by the three boys in moments of dreamy anticipation to the bulldozers closing in on the endz.
“Red Pitch” is a terrific opening act for Olney Theatre Center’s season. In brief pre-show remarks, Artistic Director Jason Loewith said, “I come to the theatre to meet people who are not like me,” inferring that theatre helps him learn about and better understand them. Joey, Omz, and Bilal may be from a specific neighborhood in another country, but their fears, hopes, and dreams are recognizable in many communities on this side of the pond. OTC has assembled a brilliant creative team behind this fabulous show. Dialect coach Yetunde Felix-Ukwu has taken three DC area actors and credibly turned them into South London street kids. I don’t know if the actors have actual experience in competitive sports, but soccer consultant Malcolm Harris has given us thoroughly believable athletes. Even if you know nothing about the game, you will love the heartfelt action of “Red Pitch.”
Running Time: Approximately one hour and 30 minutes with no intermission.
“Red Pitch” runs through October 19, 2025, in the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab of the Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road Olney, MD 20832. Regular performances are Wednesday–Saturday at 7:30 pm and matinees on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday at 1:30 pm. There is an Accessible Audio-Described Performance on Wednesday, October 8 at 7:30 pm and a sign interpreted performance on Thursday, October 9 at 7:30 pm. For more information and to purchase tickets (from $47–$96), call the Box Office at 301-924-3400, or go online.