...what the end will be Tickets

By: Jiréh Breon Holder
Director: Margot Bordelon
Producer: Roundabout Theatre Company

In his first fully-produced play at Roundabout Theatre Company, …what the end will be, Mansa Ra (also known as Jiréh Breon Holder) explores the identities, experiences, and traumas that fathers and sons share. Get …what the end will be tickets on TodayTix now.

…what the end will be is a play set in a single home where three generations of men live. All three are both Black and gay. Though they share these same identities, and each face their share of hardship because of them, the experience of being Black and gay varies for each man. Their identities shaped their life in different ways, which they all share with each other throughout the course of the play, together painting a broader picture of the Black, gay experience. Two of these characters are an estranged father and son who, amid the pandemic and a cancer diagnosis, try to rebuild their relationship — the pandemic acts as the catalyst for these conversations. According to the playwright, …what the end will be asks: “How can we rebuild our families in the face of tragedy?”

The premiere of …what the end will be Off-Broadway was previously scheduled for 2020, but the production was postponed. In the meantime, Ra debuted another new play Off-Broadway: In the Southern Breeze at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in fall 2021. His playwright debut took place in 2017, when Roundabout produced his play Too Heavy For Your Pocket, about the Freedom Riders of the Civil Rights Movement, as part of its Roundabout Underground program for emerging writers. Margot Bordelon, the director of that show, is once again directing Ra’s work with …what the end will be in New York.

Get tickets to …what the end will be Off-Broadway on TodayTix today.

What to Watch For

• If you’ve ever seen New Amsterdam on NBC, you know Mansa Ra’s work! The playwright is also a screenwriter who has written three episodes of the hit drama series.
• Intergenerational dramas are all over Off-Broadway theatres this season. The recently-closed Morning Sun was all about the links between three generations of women living together in Greenwich Village, and Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic centers on five generations of a Jewish family that wonder how safe they are on their longtime homeland.
• Ra’s last Off-Broadway play, In the Southern Breeze, is about a man who goes on a time-traveling journey through years of racial and queer history. Ra said that with Southern Breeze, he wanted to “describe the pain and the sensations of being born Black and male and queer in America. It was important to me that these Black men gathered in a space to be all parts of themselves, which includes the sadness and pain and resilience, and it also includes joy.” …what the end will be shares many of these themes, too.