A retired policeman, recently widowed, and recovering from being shot by a white colleague. An adult son newly released from jail, still running a special “business” from his bedroom. They both live in a rickety big rent-controlled apartment on Riverside Drive in New York City, with the son’s girlfriend, and a Latino recovering addict.

The tensions are inevitable, while the definitions of wrong and right become quite blurry. The patriarch is ailing, but stubborn in his determination to sue the Police Department, because he was accidentally shot by another officer who was off duty and drunk. Now he is refusing to sign the nondisclosure agreement that was among the city’s requirements for a payout. And at the same time he is facing eviction as he has decided to stop paying his very low rent.

Flipping between comedy and tragedy, this is “Between Riverside and Crazy,” a play by writer, director, and actor Stephen Adly Guirgis which won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and is being produced on Broadway for the first time this season.

“Stephen Adly Guirgis… chooses the right kind of worlds to write about: parallel to, but in many ways hidden from, our own, strange enough to fascinate yet recognizable enough to hit home…The play is completely compelling even before its primary dramatic gears start turning…” wrote Jesse Green, in his review for New York Magazine, when the play opened off-Broadway in 2015.

This play marks the Broadway debut of Common (Lonnie Rashid Lynn), rapper and actor, who in 2015 won both the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and the Academy Award in the same category for “Glory,” which he co-wrote and performed with John Legend, for the film Selma, based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches, in Alabama.

Common also acted in that movie, playing James Bevel, who led the demonstrations along with Martin Luther King Jr., Hosea Williams, and John Lewis. In “Between Riverside and Crazy.” he does not play an historical figure, but still a very dramatic one: Junior, the son of Walter “Pops” Washington, played by Stephen McKinley Henderson, a veteran of TV, plays, and several Golden Globe-winning movies, such as Fences, Manchester by the Sea, Lincoln and Lady Bird.

Common said on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” last December that his Broadway dream began with a theatrical stage debut as a 5th grader playing Tiny Tim in “A Christmas Carol.” He remembered, “I was dreaming of being on Broadway for a long time, just doing theatre. I really, really wanted to do theatre… The work I want to do as an actor and as an artist is work that changes people’s lives, that inspires people, but also entertains.” 

Now that “Between Riverside and Crazy” is under consideration for the Tony, Broadway’s main award, Common, who has already won an Emmy, Grammy and Oscar, has the chance to become an EGOT performer. For many this combination is the highest honor for an entertainer in the United States.

“I love art, and theater always affected me in a way where I felt it reached my spirit and my soul,” Common said recently to Playbill. “I know what my purpose is: to enlighten and inspire, to improve lives in any way possible that I can… I want to be one of the examples for the kids who were like me.”

Now, with Broadway more inclusive, “Between Riverside and Crazy” has been part of a season marked by African American stories, including “The Piano Lesson,” “Topdog/Underdog,” “Ohio State Murders,” “MJ the Musical,” “Ain’t No Mo’,” and “The Collaboration,” with this year’s Golden Globe nominee Jeremy Pope (The Inspection), and last year’s Paul Bettany (WandaVision). Meanwhile, some classic roles traditionally played by white actors have had Black performers this season, in “Death of a Salesman,” and “Some Like It Hot.”

In addition to its Broadway performances, “Between Riverside and Crazy” will be available to stream live until February 12th.