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Arts Alive! podcast: Exploring ‘Gruesome Playground Injuries’
In the Arts Alive! studio today are Anthony Gervais and Troy Padraic Brooks, names and faces that will be familiar to fans of live professional theater on both sides of the bay.
Only Brooks has been on the podcast before, talking about a production in which he was co-starring in early 2025.
Gervais, who’s also an actor, is directing Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries this weekend and next at the Off-Central in St. Petersburg.
The show, which stars Brooks and Sarah Beth Saho, chronicles a friendship over the course of 30 years; we meet Doug and Kayleen as children, adolescents and adults. The story is told in a non-linear fashion, jumping from one time period to another as the playwright sees fit.
The through line for these two somewhat tortured souls is, and has always been, injury and pain. It is the language only they speak and understand.
To call Gruesome Playground Injuries dark would be underselling it. It’s not a fun musical or a canny whodunit. More of the feel-bad show of the season.
For all that, it is compelling psychological theater, performed by thespians who remain fully committed from the first boo-boo to the last.
Click on the arrow to listen to the conversation.
