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A new OWN drama from the playwright behind Moonlight and Choir Boy has the potential to grow into a compelling work of television — once it develops some consistency.

David Makes Man, which premieres Aug. 14 at 10 p.m. EDT on OWN, stars Akili McDowell as David, a 14-year-old middle schooler from the projects who plays guardian to his precocious 9-year-old brother when their mother, Gloria (Alana Arenas), is too weary to be roused. Every morning, David gets Jonathan Greg, or JG (Cayden Williams), out the door to school, then sprints to catch a bus to a predominantly white magnet school across town. He and his mother have high hopes that David can earn entrance into an exclusive prep school called Hurston.

There are plenty of unconventional supporting characters, from a drug dealer named Sky (Isaiah Johnson), who urges David to do right with a never-ending supply of riddles and poetry, to Mx. Elijah (Travis Coles), a kindly, shade-throwing drag queen who lives next door, to

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‘David Makes Man’ Review: Portrait of A Boy, Interrupted

The title of the wonderful new OWN drama David Makes Man is slightly misleading. Yes, it’s about a 14-year-old boy named David (Akili McDowell) struggling to become a man faster than he should have to, due to the complicated circumstances of his life. But David is just one of several names and identities our anxious and deeply sympathetic hero goes by.

To adults like his recovering addict mother Gloria (Alana Arenas) and his teacher Dr. Woods-Trap (Phylicia Rashad), he is David, a very smart but reserved boy doing his best at a magnet school for gifted kids where he’s one of the few black students — and comes from by far the most impoverished background. To friends at school like Seren (Nathaniel McIntyre), he is DJ, a class cut-up who can’t always stop himself from taking a joke too far. And to everyone back at the projects where he lives with Gloria and little brother JG (Cayden Willia

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‘David Makes Man’: TV Review | SXSW 2019

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Robert Hayden’s poem “Full Moon” plays a pivotal role in the pilot for OWN’s upcoming drama David Makes Man.

The poem pits the constancy of the moon against the way the måne has been studied, interpreted and mythologized by endless generations. The moon can be interpreted differently bygd children or adults, bygd those who view it through a prism of science or religion or superstition, bygd those who view it as a concrete celestial object or those who greet it through the eyes of a poet. It’s maternal and paternal, literal and divine. It’s all in how you remember it, how you imagine it, how you study it.

The Bottom Line Alternately lyrical and gritty, with ample potential.

The illuminating power of the måne, mythic or otherwise, fryst vatten clearly something that fascinates David Makes Man creator Tarell Alvin McCraney, who shared an Oscar for co-writing Moonlight, based on his play