Nicholas Braun and Kara Young show their scars in ‘Gruesome Playground Injuries’ off Broadway

Succession Emmy nominee Braun and two-time Tony Award winner Young, plus playwright Rajiv Joseph and director Neil Pepe, discuss reviving the dark comedy — wounds, wonders, and all.

“Does it hurt?” When 8-year-old Kayleen (Kara Young) asks classmate Doug (Nicholas Braun) that early on in Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries, it’s a slyly loaded question.

It’s an inquiry about his banged-up face, yes, but also about life itself. So, forget “meet cute.” It’s “meet cut-up” for these on-and-off misfits who repeatedly hurt themselves and each other.

“It’s a symbolic play,” Joseph told New York Theatre Guide. “It’s about looking back in time and seeing yourself as a younger person and how you reacted to different circumstances.”

First seen off Broadway in 2011 — a year after Joseph’s Pulitzer Prize nomination for Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo — the play now runs through December 28 at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. It’s a meditation on pain, both physical and emotional, and on loss.

The storyline jumps back and forth across 30 years. After we meet Kayleen and Doug as children, their relationship evolves over the decades from closeness and attraction to estrangement and everything in between.

Director Neil Pepe sees the play as a celebration of “outlaws and outsiders who feel disconnected from society,” he said, “but they really find connection and home through each other.

“It’s really about two characters,” he added, “who want to feel alive and joyful against all odds.”

The revival’s production design reflects the notion that life, if not love, is a battlefield. The minimal, boxy scenic design, said Pepe, is “essentially a boxing ring.”

Theatrically speaking, the actors in it are a couple of knockouts. Young won back-to-back Tonys in 2024 and 2025 for Purlie Victorious and Purpose, while Braun is a three-time Emmy Award nominee for Succession.

“Kara always brings 150%. She's visceral,” said Pepe, who’s well-versed in her performances in plays like Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven at Atlantic Theater Company, where he is artistic director. “She brings the truth of who she is. She’s joyous, she’s buoyant.”

Braun’s work on Succession as Greg Hirsch, an awkward yet ambitious outsider in a powerful media family, made Pepe realize he was a fit for Doug. “I went back and looked at all his film and TV work before that," said Pepe. "He’s incredible.”

The actors, meanwhile, are excited about tackling their roles. “Doug is a lone wolf,” said Braun. “He’s a guy who hasn't been able to make friends.”

That is, until Kayleen, whom he meets in the school nurse’s office. “Their interaction, even as 8-year-olds, sets them up for this curiosity, like, 'Maybe this is my person,'” he added.

Young has been aware of the play since its debut and appreciates that Joseph writes such juicy scenes for actors. The fact that audiences — and the cast — get to know Kayleen and Doug over such a span is a rich experience.

“What a great exercise for an actor to do,” Young said. “As we dig deeper, I’m starting to understand the internal injuries and the external injuries of these two characters. It’s just so deep.”

Her hope, she adds, is that theatregoers embrace what Kayleen and Doug are going through, even when it hurts. “I want,” she said, “audiences to lean in to feel.”

Get Gruesome Playground Injuries tickets now.

Gillian Russo contributed reporting to this story.

Photo credit: Nicholas Braun and Kara Young for Gruesome Playground Injuries. (Photos by Emilio Madrid)