SMALL BALL
An Off-beat Musical

June 6 – 29, 2025

Book and Lyrics by Mickle Maher
Music by Merel van Dijk and Anthony Barilla
Directed by Taibi Magar & Tyler Dobrowsky
Commissioned and Co-Produced by
Daryl Morey, Philadelphia 76ers President of Basketball Operations

Philadelphia loves sports, so why not a sports-themed musical? Step into the surreal, magical world of Small Ball, where melancholy journeyman basketball player Michael Jordan (no, not that Michael Jordan) has recently started playing in the international league with the Lilliput Existers – as in Lilliput, from Gulliver’s Travels. With teammates who are only six inches tall, the team’s fortunes, and the post-game press conferences, rest on Michael’s shoulders. Small Ball is an off -beat musical delight, commissioned and co-produced by Daryl Morey, President of Basketball Operations for the Philadelphia 76ers. Directed by Co-Artistic Directors Taibi Magar and Tyler Dobrowsky. An East Coast Premiere.

Content Advisory: Small Ball contains strong language, adult themes, and surreal humor. Recommended for ages 13 and up.

Friday June 13th at 10:30AM

  • A performance created specifically for student audiences, with discounted tickets and curriculum connections.
  • To buy tickets email us at education@philatheatreco.org

Friday June 13 at 7:00 PM 

  • Please join us for a special Black Theatre Night, featuring engaging pre- and post-show activities designed to foster connection, conversation, and community. Celebrate the power of Black storytelling with us through dynamic programming that enhances your theater experience beyond the performance.

Saturday June 14th at 2:00 PM

1:15 – 2:00pm: Drop Off
2:00 – 2:40pm: Music Songwriting Workshop
2:40 – 3:20pm: Creative Dance Workshop
3:20 – 5:00pm: Art Project & Pick Up
  • Enjoy the show while we provide professional, on-site childcare for young children—free with your ticket. A great option for parents and caregivers.

Sunday June  15th 

  • Come early for The Warm-Up, a pre-show conversation to deepen your experience. Stick around afterward for The Wrap-Up, a facilitated discussion where audience and artists reflect together.  

June 18th at 1:00 PM

  • Description:  Join us before the show for a brief, engaging conversation that introduces key ideas, themes, or context to enhance your viewing.

Friday June 20 at 7:00 PM

  • A celebration of local partners, neighbors, and organizations coming together around the arts. Featuring a festive, welcoming atmosphere for all.  
⚠️ Beware of third-party ticket resellers like StubHub. Philadelphia Theatre Company is the ONLY official ticket source for Small Ball. Purchase directly through our website or by calling (215) 985-0420 to ensure valid tickets and fair prices.

VIDEO

CAST

PTC: Debut. Broadway: Next to Normal (original cast); Peter and the Starcatcher (original cast); Amélie (original cast); Saint Joan (revival). Off-Broadway: The Jonathan Larson Project; I Can Get It for You Wholesale; Assassins; The Fortress of Solitude (Lortel Award nomination); Rent; Fly by Night; How to Load a Musket; Nantucket Sleigh Ride; Zorba; Titanic. Regional: A New Brain, Barrington Stage Company; Sunday in the Park with George, Huntington Theatre Company; The Year to Come, La Jolla Playhouse. Film: Delivery Man. TV: Gossip Girl (HBO Max); Veep; Elementary; The Good Wife; Doubt; The Code; NCIS: New Orleans; Soundtrack.

PTC: Night Side Songs. Broadway: Bad Cinderella (Prince Sebastian, OBC); Hadestown (Orpheus); A Beautiful Noise (Shilo, OBC); West Side Story (Tony, dir. Ivo van Hove). Tour: Rent (Angel), Japan Tour. Regional: Hair, Signature Theatre and Two River Theater; Austen’s Pride, Into the Woods, ACT of Connecticut; The Wanderer, Paper Mill Playhouse; Cabaret, Gypsy, Arden Theatre Company; The Color Purple, Theatre Horizon. Film: Maestro (William), dir. Bradley Cooper; Closing Night (Jericho). More: @jordandobson_.

PTC: A Small Fire; The Bridges of Madison County (Barrymore Award, Outstanding Lead Performance). Regional: Archduke, The Comeuppance (Washington Post #1 Play of 2024), Eternal Life Part 1 (Barrymore Award, Outstanding Supporting Performance), KISS, Heroes of the Fourth Turning (Drama League Award nomination), Constellations, The Hard Problem, The Wilma Theater; Run Bambi Run, Milwaukee Repertory Theater; The Tempest, Sense & Sensibility, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival; Mountain Home Christmas, Greenbrier Valley Theatre; A Christmas Carol, Delaware Theatre Company; The Secret Garden, Parade, Arden Theatre Company; The Arsonists, Azuka Theatre; Pumpgirl, Inis Nua Theatre. International: Untitled Project #213, Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Career Awards: Independence Foundation Fellowship (2019). Affiliations: Member, Wilma Theater HotHouse Acting Company.

PTC: Debut. Tour: Mean Girls (Regina George, 1st National Tour). Off-Broadway: We Live in Cairo (Layla, Lucille Lortel Award nominee). Regional: West Side Story (Maria), New London Barn Playhouse; Tick, Tick…Boom! (Susan), Playhouse Square; Be More Chill (Brooke), Playhouse Square. Concert: Lyrics and Lyricists – Howard Ashman, 92NY. Film: Spinning; Voice Toy; Satellite. Audio: Timon of Athens (Poet, Lucretia), Play On Podcasts. Education/Training: B.M., Baldwin Wallace University. More: @nadinahassan | nadinahassan.com.

 

PTC: Debut. Regional: Sweeney Todd, All’s Well That Ends Well, King Lear, Utah Shakespeare Festival; …Deaths of Queens, EgoPo Classic Theater; Twelfth Night, Shakespeare in Clark Park; Big Red Sun, Field Hockey Hot, 11th Hour Theatre Company; This Is the Week That Is, 1812 Productions; Siluetas, Power Street Theatre; Peter and the Starcatcher, Actors Theatre of Louisville; The Light Princess, Sweeney Todd, Arden Theatre Company; A New Brain, Theatre Horizon; I Left My Heart…, Milwaukee Repertory Theater; Anyone Can Whistle, Prince Theater; Margaret Garner, Opera Philadelphia. London: Drag Divas (West End); The Winter’s Tale; Britannicus. Film: The Blues Lover; RTO. TV: Terminally Chill; The Adjuster. Education/Training: B.F.A., University of the Arts; M.A., Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (London).

PTC: Debut. Regional: Peter and the Starcatcher, Man of La Mancha, Delaware Theatre Company; Once, Arden Theatre Company; It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, Walnut Street Theatre; He Who Gets Slapped (Barrymore Award, Outstanding Original Music); Sleeping Beauty; Cinderella (musical pantos), People’s Light & Theatre Company. Upcoming: Wishing to Grow Up Brightly (Music and Lyrics), Theatre Horizon, Nov. 2025. Affiliations: Founding member, No Duds Improv, NYC. More: joshtotora.com.

PTC: Debut. Regional: This Is the Week That Is, 1812 Productions; Head Over Heels (Pamela), Rocky Horror Tribute Show (Rocky), Theatre Horizon; The Drag (Marion/Winnie/Inspector), EgoPo Classic Theater; Meeting Murasaki Shikibu (Bookstore Manager), Tiny Dynamite; Rent (Mimi), The Media Theatre; The Tempest (Ariel), Julius Caesar (Portia/Octavius), Delaware Shakespeare; Jane Eyre (Helen/Jane 3/Diana), Philadelphia Artists’ Collective; Two Gentlemen of Verona (Lucetta), Shakespeare in Clark Park.

PTC: Debut. Broadway: August: Osage County (Karen Weston); Act One (Dorothy Parker & others); Sing Street (Penny). Off-Broadway: The Counter; The Gabriel Plays (Joyce Gabriel), The Public Theater; Schlemiel the First; Melancholy Play: A Chamber Musical; Adding Machine: A Musical (Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Lortel nominations, Best Featured Actress in a Musical). Chicago: Baudelaire in a Box: Elevation and Closed Casket; Pinochet: A Carnival; Antistasia, Theater Oobleck; numerous roles at Steppenwolf and Goodman. Film/TV: The Friend, Armageddon Time, Mistress America, Gravity, The Good Wife, Boardwalk Empire, Law & Order. Music: Performances and recordings with Tallulah, Aluminum Group, Amalea Tshilds, Via Tania, and Marvin Tate.

CREATIVE CREW

Artistic Director of Philadelphia Theatre Company. Recent credits include: We Live in Cairo, A.R.T. (world premiere, upcoming at New York Theatre Workshop); The Half-God of Rainfall, New York Theatre Workshop/A.R.T.; Macbeth in Stride (co-directed with Tyler Dobrowsky), Shakespeare Theatre Company, A.R.T., Yale Rep, PTC, BAM (Spring 2025); Help, The Shed; Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Signature Theatre/A.R.T. (Lortel Award, Best Revival); Capsule, The Public/Under the Radar; Is God Is, Soho Rep (Obie Award); Underground Railroad Game, Ars Nova (Obie Award). Regional: CTG, Woolly Mammoth, Guthrie, Seattle Rep. International: Hamburg Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Malthouse (Melbourne), Soho Theatre (London). MFA: Brown University.

This is Tyler’s second full season as one of PTC’s Artistic Directors. Directing credits include: Macbeth in Stride by Whitney White (co-directed with Taibi Magar), Shakespeare Theatre Company, Yale Repertory Theatre, A.R.T., PTC, and BAM (Spring 2025); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Little Shop of Horrors, Into the Breeches (world premiere), and Love Alone (world premiere), Trinity Repertory Company; The Big Meal, Morality Play (world premiere), The Gamm Theatre; Capsule, The Public Theater/Under the Radar. Former Associate Artistic Director and Director of New Play Development at Trinity Rep. Teaching: BU, Brown, NYU, Rhode Island College, and currently, Penn.

Called “One of the most original voices in American theater today” by the Houston Chronicle, Mickle Maher is a cofounder of Chicago’s Theater Oobleck, and teaches playwriting at the University of Chicago. Plays include There is a Happiness That Morning Is; Song About HimselfAn Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor John Faustus on This His Final EveningThe Hunchback VariationsSpirits to Enforce, and It Is Magic. This last April, his adaptation of Jason Lutes’ graphic novel Berlin was premiered by Chicago’s Court Theatre. 

Since meeting in 2013, Merel van Dijk and Anthony Barilla have written music for theater, scored episodes of Public Radio’s This American Life, toured the U.S. and Europe with their band Merel & Tony, and released numerous albums, EPs and singles, including 2025’s Exquisite Remains. Van Dijk lives in Rome and creates work for theaters in the Netherlands and Italy, including her own one-woman show Dogana, while also performing as one half of Italian performance art duo Le No Choice. Barilla is a writer and performance artist based in Houston who performs and records with Balkan punk duo Disko Komitet and Houston’s most famous accordion cover band, Houston’s A.S.S.

PTC: Debut. Regional: Peter and the Starcatcher, Delaware Theatre Company; Man of La Mancha, Delaware Theatre Company; A Few Good Men, Bristol Riverside Theatre; An Evening with Groucho, Walnut Street Theatre; Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles, Gretna Theatre; Jekyll & Hyde (in concert), Gretna Theatre. Education/Training: Millersville University.

PTC: Debut. Regional: POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive (Assistant Stage Manager), Arden Theatre Company; Hilma, The Good Person of Setzuan, My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion, Fat Ham, Twelfth Night, Eternal Life Part 1, KISS (Assistant Stage Manager), The Wilma Theater. More: @chloe.l.k

 

PTC: Debut. Broadway: The Notebook (Choreographer); Moulin Rouge! (Associate Choreographer); Amélie (Associate Choreographer); American Psycho (Associate Choreographer); Once (Associate Choreographer). Regional: Great Comet, Writers Theatre; Waitress, Paramount Theatre; The Music Man, Marriott Theatre; Cabaret, Barrington Stage Company; An American Tail, Children’s Theatre Company; Once, Writers Theatre; Swearing in English, Ars Nova; AD 16, Olney Theatre Center (Helen Hayes Award for Best Choreography); The Beautiful Game, Tokyo; The Who’s Tommy, Denver Center for the Performing Arts; Oklahoma!, Goodspeed Musicals. Other: Collaborations with Lookingglass Theatre Company, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Camerata Bern, Court Theatre, The Hypocrites, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Timeline Theatre, and Northwestern University.

PTC: Small Ball (and six previous productions). Broadway: New York, New York; Sunday in the Park with George; Saint Joan. Opera: The Metropolitan Opera; Paris Opera; La Monnaie; Lausanne; Lyric Opera of Chicago; Canadian Opera; Houston Grand Opera. Dance: Arizona Ballet; Miami City Ballet; Houston Ballet; Municipal de Santiago; Atlanta Ballet; Northern Ballet; Ballet Hispánico; River North Chicago Dance. Regional: Guthrie Theater; Wilma Theater; Yale Repertory Theatre. International: Work presented in 19 countries. Awards: 17 career honors. Education/Training: M.F.A., Yale School of Drama.

PTC: The Duat; Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill; 4,000 Miles; Exit Strategy; Venus in Fur; Disgraced; Hand to God. Off-Broadway: Sandra, Vineyard Theatre; The Total Bent, The Public Theater; Kingdom Come, Roundabout; Exit Strategy, Primary Stages; King Hedley II, How I Learned What I Learned, The Liquid Plain, Signature Theatre Company. Regional: Alley Theatre; Huntington; Arden; Wilma (Associate Artist); Alliance; Milwaukee Rep; Chicago Shakespeare; Cleveland Play House; Yale Rep; Williamstown; Spoleto Festival USA. Other: Designs with Pilobolus. Awards: Helen Hayes Award, two Jeff Awards, six Barrymore Awards, two AUDELCO Awards. Education/Training: Carnegie Mellon University; Yale School of Drama.

PTC: Debut. Jeff Award nominee for Queen of the Night, Victory Gardens Theater; St. Louis Theater Circle Award nominee for Twisted Melodies, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. Other credits include: Syncing Ink, Victoria Theater at The Apollo; I Am Deliver’dt, Dallas Theater Center and Actors Theatre of Louisville; Crumbs from the Table of Joy, How I Learned What I Learned, Native Son, Skeleton Crew, PlayMakers Repertory Company; PYG or The Misedumacation of Dorian Belle, Studio Theatre; and multiple productions with Pyramid Theatre Company including The Piano Lesson and A Raisin in the Sun.

PTC: Debut. Regional: Dreamgirls, Elf, Jersey Boys, Rocky: The Musical, The Little Mermaid, Walnut Street Theatre; HILMA, Wilma Theater; Assassins, Into the Woods, Arden Theatre Company; A Christmas Carol, Songs for Nobodies, People’s Light; Head Over Heels, Theatre Horizon; Mary Poppins, Quintessence Theatre Group. Concert: Philadelphia Boys Choir & Chorale, Ocean City Pops, No Name Pops, Philadelphia Voices of Pride. More: danielespie.com

Broadway: All In, Romeo and Juliet, Stereophonic, Illinoise, An Enemy of the People, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, Slave Play, Is This a Room & Dana H, What the Constitution Means to Me. Film: Good One, The Front Room (A24), Omni Loop (2am Films), Rocky’s Deli (Ben Cohen) What the Constitution Means to Me (Amazon Prime). Artios Award. TaylorWilliamsCasting.com