Take Me Out, the Tony Award-winning stage play about a professional baseball player who comes out as gay, will be adapted into a limited series for television, according to Deadline.
Jesse Williams, best known for his work on Grey’s Anatomy (as Dr. Jackson Avery) and Little Fires Everywhere, will play the lead role of Darren Lemming. Lemming is a multi-racial center fielder for the fictional New York Empires whose coming out causes a major uproar through baseball, sports, and culture.
Facing prejudice in his own clubhouse, notably from a racist and homophobic teammate, and throughout baseball, the Empires nonetheless contend for a World Series despite tensions on and off the field.
“I’m incredibly honored by the opportunity to expand on such a profound narrative,” said Williams in the production’s official announcement (via Deadline). “The questions and challenges presented by Richard’s material are critical and seemingly boundless; cutting to the core of ‘masculinity marketing.’ What are we really, if our peace is so easily threatened by the peace of others?”
Williams is also starring in a stage revival of Take Me Out set to begin in Spring 2022 after being delayed by Broadway’s COVID-19 shutdown. The revival will also star Patrick J. Adams (Suits) as Lemming’s teammate and friend Kippy Sunderstrom, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family) as Mason, Lemming’s gay accountant who has no interest in baseball until his client comes out.
The original 2002 stage production of Take Me Out that debuted in London before moving to Broadway starred Daniel Sunjata (Rescue Me, Reggie Jackson in ESPN’s The Bronx is Burning) as Lemming and Denis O’Hare (True Blood) as Mason, in a performance that earned him a 2003 Tony Award. The play also had a limited run in Singapore in January 2014 with an entirely different cast.
Richard Greenberg, who wrote the original play, will adapt his work for the TV adaptation. No word on where Take Me Out will air, though the production company behind the project, AC Studios, has produced Dickinson for Apple TV+ and Catch 22 for Hulu, so the series could land at a streaming outlet.
