This month, former NFL star Darren Waller both announced his retirement from football and also followed his famous great-grandfather into the music world with a new single.

Thomas “Fats” Waller wrote such jazz standards as “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” and “Honeysuckle Rose." In the 1930s, he was ranked at the top among African-American entertainers on stage and on the radio.

So it’s fitting that Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe’s musical ode to Waller is called “Big Sexy.” Credit for coining that title goes to the show’s leading man, Leon S. Pitts II. He suggested it, ...