All around him is chaos, but Lance Coadie Williams sits silently. The middle-aged actor, a graduate of the Baltimore School for the Arts, plays Rev. White in Preston Crowder’s new play, “Bocking,” at Baltimore Center Stage. He and his castmates have assembled for their first table read. The satirical play, which had its world premiere on August 14, is a bawdy celebration of kink and desire and opens the 2026-2027 season.
Center Stage’s Artistic Director Stevie Walker-Webb’s intention is to “create spaces where people who have disparate experiences can come and exist together,” he said during a press preview. “Bocking” is the first in a series of productions meant to foster a “cross-pollination of cultural experiences.”
“Bocking” is not lacking in disparate cultural experiences. While Rev. White has yet to speak, his castmates have spent the last hours engaging in all kinds of foolishness. The married couple Rita and Peer Day, played by Sis Thee Doll and Christopher Sears respectively, have moaned deeply and erotically, swirling spit in their mouths as they explore their kinks. Javon Wing, read with glee by Marchánt Davis, has lifted his arm above his face and then slowly moved his other hand to pleasure himself anally to the pornography on the imagined phone (Though Davis played the role in the preview, he was replaced by Blake Morris, throughout the play’s run). Tiana Wing, Javon’s wife, given a sardonic wit by Rebecca Hargrove, has moved her head haltingly, seductively, as she stared into the eyes of Erickson, her child’s guidance counselor, imbued with chaotic anxiety by Kalen Allen, and sexually propositions him using the bocks of a chicken.
All of this, when I saw them, was going on around a series of white plastic folding tables lining three sides of a light-filled room in the Jay Andrus Rehearsal Hall at Center Stage, with Walker-Webb in the center. But even without the benefit of costumes or props, “Bocking” was scandalous.
The play is a tour de force of erotic satire, but it’s when Williams finally speaks as Rev. White that the reading attains its peak. White’s presence, his booming voice with all the diction and cadence of the most sensational of Baptist ministers, reverberates with an ecclesiastical authority. The preacher enters the play to “pray the sissy out” of Peer Day, whose open and queer sexuality challenges the shame Javon takes in erotic pleasure. As Reverend White and Javon chastise Peer for his demonic desires, he simultaneously threatens them with wild acts of depravity.
The delight Sears takes in playing the imp is magnetic. The room of generally straight-laced reporters there for the press preview filled with laughter at the mention of a dildo Peer had provided for Javon’s pleasure. And tears streamed down people’s faces — including Lena Waithe, known for “The Chi,” who is a producer on the play — when Peer attests that it is not simply any piece of rubber but one molded from his own penis.
Opening Center Stage’s season with Crowder’s play, Walker-Webb said he wants to facilitate community conversations via tension. “In this time of deep political polarization, it’s important that we become a catalyst for conversations and deeper community connection,” Walker-Webb said. “It’s risky to believe that we can all exist together in one place, in one time, in one building.”
“Bocking” presents such an opportunity. The principal couples exist on opposite ends of the political spectrum. The Wings, a Black couple, are deeply religious, heteronormative, and conservative. The Days, an interracial couple (Rita is Black and Peer is white) are atheist, queer, and progressive. The two couples are forced to interact because of their children, who are never seen; Erickson calls them all to a joint parent-teacher conference when aspects of their respective love lives spill over into the school in ways that would be mortifying and wildly disturbing in real life but here reflect the universality of sexual desire. One child repeats “rape my sloppy holes” and the other tries to finger someone’s butthole because these are the kinks of their parents.
The couples are, however, more interested in proving their moral superiority than considering their children’s behavior. The bulk of the play features the two couples trading scalding insults in Erickson’s office. (There are some especially strong jabs concerning wigs.)
Crowder’s interrogation of desire uses kink, but his principal concern is authenticity. “What does it mean to take that mask off and be authentically you and stand in the things that you want and the things that you desire?” Crowder asked before the table read. He’s not critiquing the objects of our urges but our need to manipulate others.
The gay exorcism is a result of a wager. The two men are incapable of allowing their children to exist in the same space. Peer, against the admonition of Rita, makes a bet with Javon: If Rev. White can successfully exorcise the queer out of him, he will withdraw his child from the school.
As different as they are, neither man can conceive of success except through subjugation. Though they believe they are only affecting the actions of the other man, they also manipulate their wives and themselves. Tiana seeks an affair because Javon will not pursue his erotic desires with her. Peer refuses to see Rita as Black, believing that a colorblind relationship is better.
“Bocking,” for most of the play, is a series of misconnections, but it is also a play that gives us permission to laugh together.
“I’ve seen a lot of theater over the past few years. And something I’ve been sort of craving is work that is just, like, funny, right? That you just come to laugh, to be entertained,” Crowder said. “And I think that’s what this play is really about. It’s really an offering to audiences to come and laugh.”
As the actors read the script, people were laughing. All of us were at work: reporters, actors, crew, producers. Some had read the play before; some hadn’t. Some only permitted themselves a snicker; some laughed with their whole bodies. We all looked to others, unsure whether it was okay to laugh at preachers, bestiality, or masturbation. Crowder himself, who wrote the damn thing, was laughing as much as anyone.
“You get more ahas from ha-has,” Walker-Webb said, showing his preference for people to “laugh their way into epiphany.”
Crowder has taken people from different worldviews and shown that what they laugh at and desire come from the same place. We can all laugh together because even if we remain polarized we can’t help but acknowledge that in this moment we could all use a good chuckle, together.