As his film goes head to head with La La Land for Oscar glory, the playwright tells how growing up in the Miami projects inspired his view of America
There have been a few moments in his life, Tarell Alvin McCraney tells me, when he has felt like he’s hit the clock in a game of chess, and stopped the world turning.
The first of these moments occurred when he was six or seven years old and had been away for the weekend from his mother’s home in Liberty City, a low-rise housing project in north Miami. Home at the time was not only where his mother lived but also where her boyfriend, Blue, lived. McCraney was small for his age, and bullied at school for being different, for being silent, for not being into sports. He would be beaten, called “faggot” before he knew what that word meant….
THE HOLLYWOOD REVIEW 
Leave a comment