Topdog/Underdog

The Old Globe is staging Topdog/Underdog from September 25 through October 18, with opening night on Thursday, October 1. It's a new production of the play by Suzan-Lori Parks, directed by Steve H. Broadnax III, and it's playing at the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre within the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center at 1363 Old Globe Way.

If you're not familiar with the play, it's a heavy one. It follows two brothers, Lincoln and Booth, who were given their names as a joke by their father—a joke that's hung over their lives ever since. Lincoln makes a living impersonating Abraham Lincoln at an arcade, and Booth spends his time dreaming of becoming a three-card monte hustler. The production is staged in the round, which puts the audience right inside Booth's cramped one-room apartment, so you're sitting in the middle of the room with them.

Suzan-Lori Parks is a multi-award-winning writer and musician, and she was the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, which she won in 2002 for this play. The New York Times once called Topdog/Underdog the greatest American play of the past 25 years, and it later had a 20th-anniversary Broadway revival that won the 2023 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. Steve H. Broadnax III, the Globe's Associate Artistic Director at People's Light Theatre and a professor at Penn State, describes it as a love story about two codependent brothers abandoned by their parents.

As for the schedule, there are plenty of options: Sunday and Saturday at 2 PM; Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at 7 PM; and Saturday also at 8 PM. Tickets start at $44. The Old Globe has been San Diego's flagship arts institution for over 70 years, and this is one of its 2026 season productions.