June 12, 2025
Mark Garvin/Philadelphia Theatre Co.
In 'Small Ball,' a musical produced by Daryl Morey, an island nation of 6-inch residents recruits an American basketball player named Michael Jordan. The show runs through June 29 at Philadelphia Theatre Co.
Daryl Morey has spent much of the 76ers' offseason preparing for the NBA draft. But the Sixers president of basketball operations also is serving as a producer of the absurd musical comedy "Small Ball," which opened Wednesday night, at Philadelphia Theatre Co.
The show, which could be described as "High School Musical" meets "The Borrowers" meets a fever dream, follows an American basketball player who joins a team on an island of tiny people. The eight-person musical, which Morey had a hand in creating, runs through June 29. Tickets begin at $38.
"Philly is a real sports town, so working with Daryl and doing a play that's about basketball and about sports, we were like, 'Yeah, let's do that, that that feels very reflective of the city,'" said Tyler Dobrowsky, Philadelphia Theatre Co.'s co-artistic director.
The stranger-in-a-strange-land premise follows a basketball player named Michael Jordan (a different one) who comes to the island of Lilliput, the made-up nation from "Gulliver's Travels" where everyone is 6 inches tall. Six months after every fairy tale and fantasy story ever told has been discovered as real, Lilliput wants to participate in a basketball league of teams from places formerly believed to be made up.
In an effort to gain ethos, the players and coaches name themselves Magic, Bird, Pippin and Phil Jackson after basketball legends Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Scottie Pippen and the decorated coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers.
There are only two problems: Michael Jordan won't pass the ball (partially because he's paralyzed by his emotions about his dying mother, partially because he's afraid of crushing his tiny teammates), and the number five doesn't exist on Lilliput, so they're down a player.
Hijinks ensue, romance blooms and the islanders reach back into "Gulliver's Travels' author Jonathon Swift's text to consider shooting off 600 poisoned arrows, all told in musical numbers such as "That Seems a Little Unlikely," "Other People" and "Sex With Giants."
In 'Small Ball,' Philadelphia Theatre Co. uses lighting tricks to show the different sizes of the characters Lilli, left, and Michael Jordan, right.
To tell the story, Dobrowsky and his team had to find creative ways to portray the different sizes of the characters. To do so, one side of the set — a basketball court set up for postgame interviews — features a smaller table and basketball hoop to make Michael Jordan look large. The other side has a giant table and basketball hoop to make the islanders seem small. Some scenes also were cast in shadows to better show the scale of the main characters.
"The perspective of the set means that one side of the set looks like very big, from the perspective of a 6-inch tall person, and then the other end of the set is like you're a normal-sized person," Dobrowsky said. "So we're playing with perspective in those ways."
Lexi Thammavong, Josh Totora, Sarah Gliko, Adam Chanler-Berat and Rob Tucker, shown left to right, make up the residents of Lilliput in 'Small Ball.'
"Small Ball" was born from playwright Mickle Maher, who was inspired by former NBA All-Star Stephon Marbury's tenure in China, the Inquirer reported. The pair connected on the internet after Morey posted about his love for theater.
The show came to Philadelphia Theatre Co. after Dobrowsky and wife, Taibi Magar, took over the theater in 2022 and met with Morey, who is on the company's board. The production company put on a workshop version of the show in 2023 before officially adding it to the 2024-2025 season.
According to Dobrowsky, Morey has been a theater fan since childhood and, as a numbers guy, enjoys music because of its strong connection to math. "Small Ball," which premiered in Texas when Morey was the general manager for the Houston Rockets, has been a pet project that Morey hoped to move into a fully-realized production in his spare time. During the 2023 run, Morey hinted at his interest in getting the show on Broadway.
"He just loves the material and then I think he really loves supporting artists, I think that's a thing he's really trying to do," Dobrowsky said.
