A Good Boy Is Not a Perfect Production, but it is an Important One

This article was published by Triangle Review on 21 August  2025.

Last night in UNC-Chapel Hill's Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre, PlayMakers Repertory Company unveiled the world premiere of A Good Boy, a new Hidden Voices musical, created by local playwright and lyricist Lynden Harris, with music by composer Marc Callahan and AJ Layague. Harris founded Hidden Voices, a nonprofit, in 2003; and the organization has worked with incarcerated individuals and their families since 2013. Each performance is followed by a discussion with advocacy organizations dedicated to ending the death penalty and supporting incarcerated individuals, underscoring that this is not just a play but part of a broader call for justice.

This particular project emerged from an invitation by the lead psychologist at Central Prison in Raleigh after they saw an earlier Hidden Voices production about women in prison. The collaboration that followed -- with death row inmates and their families -- shaped the script of A Good Boy, which directed by PlayMskers Rep and Hidden Voices veteran Kathryn Hunter-Williams. It's clear throughout the evening that this is a play rooted in lived experience.

The cast succeeds in bringing both humor and humanity to their roles, even when the subject matter feels unbearably heavy. Yolanda Rabun, as Yolanda, commands the stage with razor-sharp timing and a comically believable accent. One of her best lines comes early in the performance, when, while entering the prison, she is asked why she doesn't have a driver's license: "I'm from New York. We don't drive, and you should be grateful!"

Hazel Edmond, as Mary, offers a quieter presence. She plays a mother whose son is also on death row, and her delivery carries a mix of sincerity, charisma, and hard-earned wisdom. Her spoken lines, in particular, shine with emotional clarity -- though at times, her softer singing voice struggled to compete with the piano accompaniment.

Serena Ebhardt brings a wholly different flavor as Heather, adopting what sounds like a Southern Appalachian drawl. Her over-the-top lines could easily veer into caricature, but she makes them believable as well as comical. "Crazy as a sprayed cockroach" was one of my favorite lines of the evening.

Meanwhile, Jade Arnold as Bradley -- the DA's lawyer and nephew of a death-row inmate -- demonstrates flashes of brilliance, particularly in the climactic number "Who's Your Daddy," which slides into a percussive, Spoken Word style. Arnold's delivery here is passionate and confident, one of the strongest vocal moments of the night. His spoken dialogue, however, felt less natural compared to his cast mates. Similarly, Jeffrey Blair Cornell, as the correctional officer Bullock, seemed somewhat caught between overdrama and flatness, never fully embodying the role's menace or mundanity.

Callahan and Layague's score has clear ambition, but the musical elements of A Good Boy are less effective than its spoken dialogue. Much of the singing leans toward what I call sing-talking rather than well-defined melodies, often reiterating ideas already stated in dialogue. As a result, instead of propelling the story forward, many of the musical numbers slow its momentum.

The live music -- particularly the piano -- was at times overpowering, obscuring both solo and ensemble voices. When the Warden first sang, it was difficult to hear him at all over the accompaniment. Similar balance issues affected Hazel Edmond's songs. The Kenan Theatre's acoustics may be partly to blame, but microphone placement (above the actors' foreheads rather than closer to their mouths) also seemed to contribute. Better sound design could greatly improve audience clarity and immersion.

It also would have been interesting to hear greater stylistic variety in the vocal numbers. The play's characters are richly diverse, but their singing voices all land in the same place. One could easily imagine Heather with a bluegrass twang, Yolanda with a jazzy New York flair, Mary with a sweet Broadway voice, and Bradley with a style combining hip-hop and Spoken Word poetry.

Derrick Ivey's set is intentionally minimal, echoing the antiseptic design of institutional spaces. A walk-through metal detector, a two-shelved cart, a trash can, and a few hard chairs are all that separate the audience from the prison's waiting room. This sparseness works to the play's advantage, focusing our attention on the people and their stories rather than the trappings of production design.

Thematically, the play exposes how small, arbitrary rules -- enforced without compassion -- become another form of cruelty for families visiting incarcerated loved ones. Whether it's the absence of a driver's license or prohibitions in retrieving the belongings of a recently deceased relative, the play reveals how institutions compound grief with unnecessary indignities.

A Good Boy is not a perfect production, but it is an important one. Its greatest strengths lie in the authenticity of its stories and the commitment of its performers to telling them. The humor threaded throughout -- often through the voices of mothers -- prevents the play from collapsing under the weight of its subject, making it both more accessible and more emotionally piercing.

At times, the music distracts from the clarity of the narrative, and technical adjustments to sound design are much needed. Yet the heart of A Good Boy beats strongly. Harris, Callahan, and Layague have created a theatrical space where audiences are invited not only to witness but also to engage. As Harris writes in the program interview, "Every project happens because somebody hears about something else and says, 'Would you come?'" If your answer is yes, you should come to one of the remaining performances of A Good Boy, which plays through Sunday, August 24th)."