As the audience filed into Olney Theatre Center’s Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab Saturday night for the U.S. premiere of Red Pitch, the small cast of three was already in motion, showing off their soccer moves on the red concrete stage. An errant kick sent the ball flying squarely toward an usher directing patrons to their seats. Looking every bit as mortified as three teenage schoolboys, actors Ty’Ree Hope Davis, Terrence Griffin, and Angelo Harrington II bounded over to hug the usher before returning to the stage, comically chastising each other along the way.
This unscripted preshow moment felt like an entirely believable opening to Red Pitch, the story of Black British teenagers Bilal (Davis), Joey (Griffin), and Omz (Harrington), who gather each day on the titular “red pitch” — a patch of concrete in a fictional South London neighborhood known as “the endz.” As the neighborhood changes around them, with the chicken wing shop on the corner giving way to an upscale coffee shop and the residents of their council estate (public housing project) relocating one by one as apartment blocks are slated for demolition, Bilal, Joey, and Omz ground themselves in their shared dreams of playing professional football (soccer). As factors and forces beyond their control loom over their lives, the boys find sanctuary in the red pitch and in their friendship. But as the redevelopment of “the endz” marches on, the boys’ lives as residents of public housing grow increasingly precarious, threatening both their friendship and the “red pitch” that forges it.
Following sold-out runs at London’s Bush Theatre in 2022 and 2023, where it earned all five of the UK’s Off West End Awards for Best New Play, and a West End premiere in 2024, playwright Tyrell Williams and director Daniel Bailey have brought Red Pitch to the U.S. for the first time at Olney, mounting the play with an American cast and crew. Soccer consultant Malcolm Harris trained the actors in an on-field bootcamp this summer, while dialect coach Yetunde Felix-Ukwu has the DC-based cast speaking with the accents and slang of young Black Londoners.
Williams describes his writing style as character-driven, stating in a preshow panel, “I enjoy exploring humans.” The three actors fill the stage with energy, bantering and one-upping each other as they train for a football club tryout while juggling family pressures, uncertain futures, relationships (or the lack thereof), and breakups. Their performances reveal the full humanity of these young men, each interaction peeling back new layers as the play unfolds.
As Bilal, Ty’Ree Hope Davis is all long limbs and nervous energy. Single-mindedly focused on “making it” as a footballer, he constantly urges Joey and Omz to keep practicing while they tease him that a successful man also needs to rest. Beneath Bilal’s intensity lurks anxiety triggered by his demanding father, who also once saw football as his ticket out of the council estate but remained behind to care for family responsibilities.
Family responsibilities loom large beneath the surface for Omz (Angelo Harrington II), who cares for his younger brother and their ailing grandfather and hopes that improvements to the neighborhood mean that “the lifts will work” and his grandfather won’t need to walk up five floors to their apartment. Behind his bravado and bluster, Harrington’s Omz struggles to carry his family burdens or to ask for help. His pain, anger, and desperation bubble to the surface both quietly (in his reaction to a phone call from home) and more explosively later in the play, in a visceral fight scene choreographed by Casey Kaleba.
Joey (played by Terrence Griffin in his professional theater debut) stands physically a head taller than his friends and is the most farsighted of the three. Interested in the possibilities and promise of a life outside “the endz,” Griffin as Joey thinks aloud about his backup plans if football doesn’t work out, and attempts to advise his friends on how to navigate social systems and services as they face the prospect of displacement amid the redevelopment of their neighborhood.
Nadir Bey’s scenic design sets the stage for “the endz” and bookends the red pitch with one goal spray-painted on a graffiti-covered brick wall, and the other goal formed by a rectangular piece of wood. Fencing and scaffolding at each end of the stage evoke the ongoing demolition and construction of the gentrifying neighborhood. The three friends’ shared ritual of slapping the sign on the fence as they enter and exit the red pitch punctuates the play from start to finish.
DJ Potts’ sound design grounds the play in the neighborhood through the rumble of construction vehicles and the chants of community members, while also bringing the boys’ aspirations to life with Premier League announcers and cheering stadium crowds in dream sequences choreographed by Siani Nicole. The musical choices, including during a party that Bilal, Joey, and Omz attend just days before their big tryout, left audience members asking for a Spotify soundtrack after the show.
While the design elements and the individual performances shine in Olney’s production of Red Pitch, the interaction between the three characters allows the whole to be greater than the sum of its parts, as Bilal, Joey, and Omz spar on and off the pitch, call one another out on their bullshit, hype each other up, and have each other’s backs in a believable — and enjoyable — portrayal of teenage male friendship.
At a time when many men of all ages on both sides of the pond struggle to maintain close friendships, Red Pitch and its characters resonate deeply. If Olney’s packed house on opening night is any indication, American audiences will be rooting for Red Pitch — and for the friendships at its heart — from opening kickoff to the final whistle.
Running Time: 90 minutes, without intermission.
Red Pitch plays through October 19, 2025, in the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theater Lab at Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Rd, Olney, MD. Regular performances are Wednesday—Saturday at 7:30 pm, with matinees on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday at 1:30 pm. Tickets ($47—$95) can be purchased online, by calling the box office at 301-924-3400, or through TodayTix. Discounts for groups, seniors, teachers, active military, first responders, and students are available here.
The digital program for Red Pitch is available here.
Red Pitch
By Tyrell Williams, based on the original direction by Daniel Bailey
CAST
Ty’Ree Hope Williams: Bilal
Terrence Griffin: Joey
Angelo Harrington II: Omz
Chandler Jordan: Understudy Bilal/Omz
Quincy Vicks: Understudy Joey
CREATIVE TEAM
Scenic Designer: Nadir Bey
Lighting Designer: Amith Chandrashaker
Costume Designer: Jeannette Christensen
Sound Designer: DJ Potts
Choreographer: Siani Nicole
Fight Choreographer: Casey Kaleba
Soccer Consultant: Malcolm Harris
Dialect Coach: Yetunde Felix-Ukwu
Stage Manager: Rachel Harrison
SEE ALSO:
West End hit ‘Red Pitch’ to open Olney’s 2025/26 season (news story August, 26, 2025)
