Daryl Morey’s musical, ‘Small Ball,’ meshes his love of basketball with the arts

When 76ers president Daryl Morey was younger, he dreamed of being a music composer.

Somehow he ended up working in the NBA instead, but that doesn’t mean he’s abandoned his love for the arts. While the Sixers were in Detroit on Wednesday, Morey was at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre on Broad Street, for a presentation of his basketball-themed musical called Small Ball.

Morey collaborated with the Philadelphia Theatre Company for the staged reading of the musical, which he originally commissioned but was written by Mickle Maher. Small Ball previously had runs in Houston — back when Morey was general manager of the Rockets — and Denver.

“We get closer to New York each time,” Morey said. “Musicals, for those who are real fans, take a real long time, like the recent big hits like Hadestown, took 18 years. This is a new version, new songs; we keep revising it. And it’s a fun version. I think Philadelphia will love it.”

The musical, which he called an “absurdist comedy,” got its start from a conversation Morey had several years ago on X (formerly known as Twitter). While scouting in Europe, Morey was doing an “Ask me Anything” on the platform, when someone asked what he would be doing if he hadn’t made it in basketball.

“I’d love to be part of a musical,” Morey responded.

From there, a company in Houston reached out to him and got the ball rolling on Small Ball. Maher wrote the screenplay and lyrics, while Merel Van Dijk and Anthony Barilla composed the music.

Small Ball is set in a world where Lilliputians, the very small people from Gulliver’s Travels, decide to start a FIBA basketball team. The Lilliput Existers sign one regular-sized player, Michael Jordan, who has the same name but not much of the basketball talent as the Bulls icon. Jordan has difficulty passing to his teammates, who are all 6 inches tall, and they play down a man in every game, as the insular Lilliputian society has no concept of the number five. The entire plot of the play occurs in postgame news conferences, while the Existers understandably struggle under these conditions.

Most of the Lilliputians’ names also evoke memories of NBA greats: Magic, Bird, Pippin, and Phil Jackson. There also is a love story.

“It sort of fits my personality: cool but different. Or maybe just different,” Morey said. “It’s a show that you don’t have to know basketball. If you love basketball, there’s a lot of good jokes, if you love musical theater — there’s a lot for everybody.”

Sixers GM Elton Brand was in the front row for Wednesday’s reading. Also in the audience were members of Camden Academy Charter High School. The Sixers have a close relationship with the school, which is close to the team’s practice facility.

Morey said several NBA players have come to see the show in its previous runs.

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“They generally like the opening,” Morey said. “They get the opening more than anyone, because it opens at the start of a news conference. I don’t want to reveal too much, but what [Jordan] says after the news conference, and gets grilled by the reporters just feels very real to them.

“So they love that part. They also love that the assistant coach, Pippin, is basically a sociopath. It resonates with them, that they’ve had a lot of assistant coaches that are a little bit different, a little bit crazy. So those are the two things that they love. They have given us feedback that we’ve incorporated.”

Morey has also produced shows on Broadway, including Merrily We Roll Along and Parade, generally as part of a larger group of producers.

While Small Ball was only in Philadelphia for one night, Morey left open what the future might hold for the musical.

“In Philadelphia, we’re spunky,” he said. “We beat up on the New York sports teams, and maybe they do pretty well in theater. But who knows where it’ll go next, and I wouldn’t count out Philadelphia.”