This Greenville Journal article by Paul Hyde was originally published on May 27th, 2026. Photo: Will Crooks
The title is a giveaway. “Football Football Football Football” takes a close look at America’s obsession with a certain favorite sport.
Can you guess which one?
The play explores what happens when football collides with brisk comedy, political satire and an all-female cast portraying more than 40 male characters.
Beginning June 5, the Warehouse Theatre will host the world premiere of Kristoffer Diaz’s gleefully offbeat comedy with the full title of “Football Football Football Football (or I Love Lave Dash).”
The fast-moving, roughly 90-minute one-act play not only examines football but gleefully pokes fun at everything surrounding it.
“It’s a straight-up hats-and-mustaches-and-silliness kind of comedy,” Diaz said, speaking by phone from his home in New Jersey.
Diaz, a Tony nominee (“Hell’s Kitchen”) and Pulitzer finalist (“The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity”), leaves no laugh unturned as he shows how two top draft picks (one of whom is named Lave Dash) smash their way through offensive lines, the press room, politics, and their own heads.
Theatrical twist
Beneath the humor, Diaz said, lies a deeper fascination with football’s contradictions: the spectacle, tribalism and pageantry surrounding a deeply physical and sometimes-brutal sport.
Part of the inspiration for Diaz came while watching a football game several years ago when former Carolina Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly suffered a concussion and tearfully left the field.
“It was a reminder of how intense and serious these things are,” Diaz said. “I was interested in all of the circus and pageantry that goes around this game that is sort of a fundamentally violent experiment.”
At the same time, Diaz — a football fan himself and a former long-suffering Buffalo Bills supporter — wanted to approach those questions through humor.
“Sometimes the best way to handle the bizarreness of everyday life is through comedy,” he said.
Developed over several years through workshops in New York and Chicago, the play has taken shape in collaboration with the Warehouse Theatre’s producing artistic director Mike Sablone and stage director Ashley Rodbro.
The production’s boldest theatrical twist may be its casting.
Though the play features more than 40 characters — all male — every role is played by a woman. A six-person female cast will portray coaches, players, commentators and assorted football personalities.
The unconventional choice also allows the play to explore football’s deeply masculine culture from an unexpected angle.
One thing audiences should expect is jokes. Lots of them.
Diaz said humor extends to nearly every aspect of the production — from costumes and sound design to hidden visual gags and theatrical Easter eggs.
“We’re pulling out all the stops,” he said.
