The Half-God of Rainfall Tickets

When Demi, the half Nigerian-mortal, half Greek-god, is angry, rain clouds gather. When he cries, rivers burst their banks. And the first time he takes a shot on a basketball court, the deities of the land wake up.

From award-winning poet and playwright Inua Ellams (Barber Shop Chronicles) comes a new myth that spans continents and millennia. The Half-God of Rainfall is a contemporary epic that weaves poetry and storytelling in a majestic journey that transports us from a tiny village in South West Nigeria to an NBA arena in the United States to the hallowed halls of Mount Olympus, where the mothers, daughters and goddesses take a stand against the fragile, furious and entitled gods. Obie Award winner and NYTW Usual Suspect Taibi Magar (Help) directs.

Experience a mythic, poetic, and godly play this summer. Playwright and poet Inua Ellams's The Half-God of Rainfall takes audiences on a global journey through the natural and supernatural at New York Theatre Workshop. Get The Half-God of Rainfall tickets on TodayTix.

The Half-God of Rainfall play centers on Demi, a half-Nigerian mortal, half-Greek god whose emotions control water. But he has another talent: basketball, which propels him around the world as he quickly becomes a sports star and catches the attention of the other gods. Those include Zeus, who gets jealous of his skill. But since the other gods support Demi, he suddenly becomes the face of something even bigger than the NBA: a movement to put Zeus in his place.

The Half-God of Rainfall has gone on its own international journey: The show premiered at Birmingham Rep in England before coming off Broadway under Taibi Magar's direction. His own experiences as a basketball player in Nigeria and the U.K. — including the expectation to be near-godly as the only Black man on his team in Ireland — largely inspired The Half-God of Rainfall. Ellams was last seen off Broadway in 2019 with The Barber Shop Chronicles.

Score tickets to this otherwordly epic. Get tickets to The Half-God of Rainfall in New York on TodayTix.

What to Watch For

• The play's title comes from a poem Ellams wrote called “Of All The Boys of Plateau-Private School,” about his friends in Nigeria. He described one of them as "the half-god of rainfall," a reference to how skilled players who can "rain" down shot after shot are called "rain men."
• Talk about an epic journey! Ellams wrote seven drafts of the play over the course of eight years.
• Basketball star Michael Jordan is referenced in the play — here, he's a fellow demigod who gets in trouble with the gods for actually flying on the court, raising suspicion that his skill is supernatural.
• The show mixes two mythological traditions: Greek and Yoruban (a West African ethnic group).
• Basketball is having a moment off Broadway: The recent plays Flex (about a young women's team) and King James (about the friendship between two fans of Michael Jordan) also revolve around the sport.