We are celebrating the legacy of William Shakespeare by recalling the ways that he continues to live on, through his works on our grandest stages, on Broadway.
With new productions of Othello and Romeo & Juliet already on the way for the 2024-2025 Broadway season, we look back at the recent revivals of some of the Bard’s most prominent works.
1. Macbeth
Most Recent Revival: 2022
Theater: Longacre Theatre
Directed by Sam Gold; starred Daniel Craig as Macbeth and Ruth Negga as Lady Macbeth.
This revival was noted for its stark, modern interpretation with minimalistic design. Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga’s performances were highly praised, bringing intense and nuanced interpretations to their roles.
2. King Lear
Most Recent Revival: 2019 at the Cort Theatre
Directed by Sam Gold; starred Glenda Jackson as King Lear.
Glenda Jackson’s portrayal of Lear brought a fresh and poignant perspective to the role, emphasizing the themes of power and loss. The modern setting and innovative stage design highlighted the timeless nature of Shakespeare’s tragedy.
3. Twelfth Night
Most Recent Revival: 2013 at the Belasco Theatre (part of a double feature with Richard III
Directed by Tim Carroll; starred Mark Rylance as Olivia and Stephen Fry as Malvolio.
This production was acclaimed for its authentic Elizabethan staging, complete with all-male casting and period costumes. Mark Rylance’s performance as Olivia was particularly celebrated for its comedic brilliance and depth.
4. Romeo and Juliet
Most Recent Revival: 2013 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre
Directed by David Leveaux; starred Orlando Bloom as Romeo and Condola Rashad as Juliet.
This revival featured a modern setting with a racially diverse cast, exploring the play’s themes of love and conflict through a contemporary lens. The chemistry between Bloom and Rashad was notably compelling.
5. The Merchant of Venice
Most Recent Revival: 2010 at the Broadhurst Theatre
Directed by Daniel Sullivan; starred Al Pacino as Shylock.
Al Pacino’s portrayal of Shylock was a highlight, offering a nuanced interpretation of the complex character. The production was well-received for its clarity and the compelling performances of its cast.
6. Hamlet
Most Recent Revival: 2009 at the Broadhurst Theatre
Directed by Michael Grandage; starred Jude Law as Hamlet.
Jude Law’s performance was central to this production’s success, bringing a youthful energy and emotional depth to the role. The minimalist staging focused the audience’s attention on the psychological drama.
“Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch” has withstood the test of time and stands as evidence of the genius of the late great Ossie Davis, but it is also so much more than that. When I heard that this play was returning to Broadway after 62 years I was absolutely thrilled! It began performances on Thursday, September 7, 2023, and officially opened on Wednesday, September 27, 2023, at the Music Box Theatre. The production was later extended through February 4, 2024! Talk about a legacy and a play with a timeless message.
Leslie Odom, Jr. stars as Purlie Victorious Judson. Photo by Marc J. Franklin.
Ossie Davis is regarded as an incredible person who left a great legacy as an actor, playwright, and activist. His play contains a timeless message about Black love, pride, identity and the Black person’s indomitable spirit that allows them to fight for their rights. “Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch” shares the story of Purlie Victorious Judson, a Black Preacher fighting segregation and trying to save his church. When Davis first debuted this play at the Cort Theatre—now the James Earl Jones Theatre—on September 28, 1961, the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing. Blacks had few opportunities to be on stage, let alone Broadway stages and Black roles on stage were not something that promoted Black pride. With this play Davis offered an incredible solution to so many issues of the time. He used this play to not only tell an African American story that fought against segregation, but to encourage Black people to love themselves—take pride in their physical appearance—and he created this play to give Black actors much needed jobs and establish their names in the industry.
Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee in “Purlie Victorious.” Photo by Friedman-Abeles.
He starred in the play as Purlie Victorious Judson and he created the role of Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins for his wife Ruby Dee. Other prominent actors were Godfrey Cambridge–who received a nomination for the 1962 Tony Award for best performance by an actor in a featured role in a play for the role of Gitlow Judson, and a young Alan Alda appeared as Charley Cotchipee before becoming known for his role in the long-running television series M*A*S*H. The company also included Sorrell Booke who played Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee, Helen Martin who played Missy Judson, Beah Richards who played Idella Landy, Ci Herzog as The Sheriff and Roger C. Carmel as The Deputy. The original work was directed by Howard Da Silva. Sadly, the racism that existed when this play first ran continues to be a part of our society’s fabric. Black people are still fighting racist hatred, being treated poorly and having a hard time feeling proud of who they are. And consequently, this play is as relevant today as it was 62 years ago.
Leslie Odom, Jr. and Kara Young as Purlie Victorious Judson and Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins, respectively. Photo by Marc J. Franklin
When “Purlie Victorious…” debuted in 1961 it played 261 performances and critics happily acknowledged Davis’ writing talent, his acting talent and that of his wife, Ruby Dee. The Daily News wrote, “As a playwright, Davis is well equipped with crackling jokes and jabs…As a comic actor he is very skillful, with a remarkable voice, a most amiable presence…Miss Dee reveals herself as a deft and charming comedienne…”Variety raved, “Purlie Victorious reveals a new playwright of promise, particularly in the race field of broad comedy…Davis and his wife, Ruby Dee, are costarred in this conglomerate mixture of comedy, melodrama, farce, fantasy and tolerance sermon, with a basically serious, if not intense, theme…A novel aspect of the play is its uninhibited use of racial stereotypes (both Negro and white) for comedy. Beneath all the laughs, of course, the author is purposeful, and his points are effectively made.” The New York Times remarked, “Ossie Davis, actor and author, has passed this miracle of uninhibited and jovial speaking out in his new play, Purlie Victorious …While Purlie Victorious keeps you chuckling and guffawing, it unrelentingly forces you to feel how it is to inhabit a dark skin in a hostile or, at best, grudgingly benevolent world.”
Original Broadway production of “Purlie Victorious.” Photo by Friedman-Abeles
While the original production in 1961 launched careers, the 2023 production is being embraced by established, award-winning stage artists. Tony Award winner and Oscar nominee Leslie Odom, Jr. (Hamilton, One Night in Miami) plays the lead role of Purlie Victorious Judson, twice Tony-nominated actress Kara Young (Clyde’s, Cost of Living) plays Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins; they are be joined by Billy Eugene Jones (Fat Ham), Vanessa Bell Calloway; Heather Alicia Simms, veteran theater actor Jay O. Sanders,; Noah Robbins, Noah Pyzik and Bill Timoney. The play is directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon (A Raisin in the Sun, Fences).
Recently, the three children of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Nora Davis Day, Guy Davis, and Hasna Muhammad, talked about what Purlie Victorious meant to their family, and what this play meant back then and means today. Nora recalled that her father worked on this play for 5 years. “He told me what he was doing from beginning to end,” she said, sharing why this work has a special place in her heart. “I remember being a little girl and knowing when it got late at night Dad would be downstairs with a legal pad–that’s how he wrote and he wrote in pencil and he would tape his pinky finger because when he was writing if he wasn’t careful he would get a callus or a blister on his pinky. He used scotch tape which was always interesting. So, when we had the opportunity to bring the play back there was no question that we would respond to Jeffrey [Richards-one of the producers] and others for this opportunity to get Dad’s poetic play back on Broadway.”
Jay O. Sanders, Billy Eugene Jones, Kara Young & Leslie Odom, Jr. Photo by Marc J. Franklin.
Considering the importance of the character of Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins, Guy realized that his father was an innovator for women. “It was something that was ahead of its time in terms of women getting important roles. But, I think that Dad’s motive was more love than politics…It was a chance for the family to work together.”
Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee taught their children the value of having Black stories and putting Black actors to work. Hasna shared, “Mom and Dad always talked with us about the significance of having African American writers, producers and directors and people behind the scenes, people owning the studios. And the fact that they were in a play where they were working actors was always something to be celebrated and they were glad for it and we felt happy for them, but they never lost sight that there were so many other Black actors who weren’t working. Some of them weren’t working just because they were Black and because there were no roles for Black folk. I think that the fact that Dad was able to write something that both he and Mom were able to perform in, but not only perform in, but perform on Broadway, this was incredible.”
Speaking on the legacy of this beloved play Hasna reflected, “It’s legacy, an African American playwright has had a play on Broadway and a play that is considered a classic… For the character of Purlie Victorious the legacy speaks about manhood, about finding oneself acceptable and beautiful without needing the white gaze and being able to use wit and the constitution to fight segregation, to use humor to fight segregation. It’s another tool in our toolbox for the liberation of our people. There’s all types of art that bring different perspectives on what resistance looks and feels like and what Dad does is he adds to those tools the value of laughter and humor and our ability to resist.”
The foremost First Lady of her time, or perhaps ever, Eleanor Roosevelt said it best: “If you have not seen ‘Purlie Victorious’ I think it is well for you as an American citizen to see it and to ponder our racial problem, not as a question affecting our lives here in the United States but as a question affecting our standing and our real sincerity among the peoples of the world.”
Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee left a great legacy for their children and the world. They raised their children in theater, but also in civil rights and made them a part of any protest they participated in, instilling in them the importance of supporting the Black community. Today they are artists, teachers, photographers and they continue, through their work, the legacy that Davis and Dee started. See a piece of their and our history at the Music Box Theatre.
Mike Birbiglia in "The Old Man and the Pool." Photo by Emilio Madrid.
Blurring the lines between theater and standup, these virtuosic performances brought comedians to the Main Stem. Here are some of our favorite comedic offerings in recent Broadway memory.
Alex Edelman’s Just For Us
After multiple sold out Off-Broadway runs, Alex Edelman’s one-man-show, Just For Us, opened at the Hudson Theatre on June 26, 2023. Edelman recounts the true story of the time he, a Jewish man, attended a neo-Nazi meetup in Queens, NY because it called for people who are “curious about their whiteness.” This experience leads to a thoughtful and hilarious rumination on his Boston upbringing, his career in comedy, and the idea of being a “good person.” The show is scheduled to run through August 19, 2023.
Photo by Emilio Madrid
Mike Birbiglia: The New One and The Old Man & The Pool
Often credited as the pioneer of the part-standup, part-monologue form, Mike Birbiglia has brought two of his specials to Broadway stages. The New One, about his experiences as a new father, played the Cort Theatre (since renamed the James Earl Jones) in 2018 and was eventually released as a Netflix special following the run. Years later, his pondrance on aging and mortality entitled The Old Man & The Pool, ran at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. That show is set to play the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe followed by the West End’s Wyndham Theatre in the fall.
Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me
Comedy icon Martin Short, who stars in Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, starred in his own Broadway musical in the 2006-2007 Broadway season. With music and lyrics by composing duo Marc Shaiman & Scott Wittman (Some Like it Hot, Hairspray!), the semi-autobiographical work, in which Short played an exaggerated celebrity-obsessed version of himself, also featured Brooks Ashmanskas in the cast, earning him his first Tony nomination.
Oh, Hello on Broadway
Nick Kroll and John Mulaney brought their elderly alter-egos, Gil Faizon and George St. Geegland, to the Main Stem with the Broadway iteration of their two-hander, The Oh, Hello Show. Mulaney and Kroll had originated the characters on TV’s The Kroll Show. The two friends ramble about their pasts and ambitions, and the show eventually culminates in the serving of a dubious sandwich with “too much tuna” to a special guest (which included the likes of Tina Fey, Steve Martin, Ben Platt, Katy Perry, John Oliver and Alan Alda.) This too was eventually released for your streaming enjoyment on Netflix.
Photo by Joan Marcus
Dame Edna’s The Royal Tour, Back With a Vengeance & All About Me
After making his Broadway debut as Mr. Sowerberry (and the understudy for Fagin) in the original 1963 production of Oliver! Barry Humphries brought his iconic character Dame Edna to the Main Stem in three separate shows. In 1999, The Royal Tour opened at the Booth Theatre, followed by Dame Edna: Back With a Vengeance at the Music Box Theatre in 2004. Edna’s third Broadway outing came in spring 2010, when All About Me opened at Henry Miller’s Theatre. The latter musical, a double bill, saw Edna go toe-to-toe with singer Michael Feinstein, and every night was a competition over who got to be the star. It was Barry Humphries’ final appearance on Broadway as Edna before the storied performer passed away in February 2023.
Will Ferrell in You’re Welcome America
Just months after George W. Bush left the White House, Will Ferrell brought his impersonation of the early aughts president to the Broadway stage in You’re Welcome America. A Final Night with George W. Bush. The character, which originally debuted on Saturday Night Live in 2000, took the opportunity to address the country one last time, regaling the audience with stories of his early life and political career. The play ran at the Cort Theatre in early 2009, and was broadcast on HBO the night before the play closed on March 15.
Everything about The Minutes on Broadway has been crafted to make its world seem as real and as familiar as a half-remembered episode of a classic Americana sitcom. A lost episode of The Andy Griffith Show where Opie learns about local politics, maybe.
The Minutes is, however, a Tracy Letts play—so it doesn’t take very long before things begin to shift from the comedy of small-town bureaucracy to something more sinister. Told in real-time during a city council meeting, Letts’ play lures audiences into expecting something very different than is what is on the playwright’s mind. But it all begins with the set on the Cort Theatre stage, a room of desks and framed certificates and flag stands as instantly recognizable as your parents’ living room.
It’s an American iconography. You feel that immediately when you walk in the door because it’s so recognizable.
“The setting carries with it an iconography,” director Anna D. Shapiro says. “You look at the set, you see those tables, all those little microphones, you see the flags behind them—I mean, it’s an American iconography. You feel that immediately when you walk in the door because it’s so recognizable.”
That familiarity—culled by set designer David Zinn from an actual coffee table book of city council rooms—is the result of a specificity so honed that it becomes universal. “When you’re that specific, it really tightens the focus,” Shapiro says. “The audience starts to understand that contract of where they’re looking for their information. And all that we’re trying to do in theater is figure out a way to communicate the contract to the audience as fast as possible: These are the rules, these are the possibilities, this is the world.”
The set is all Zinn, but the individual props on each council member’s desk all came from the performers. Each character may seem like an archetype—the befuddled but vocal older man; the very prim and dignified woman of a certain age; the combative guy; the new guy still figuring it out—but each is also a fully realized person participating (or zoning out) in the meeting being held.
“I have to say, I watched probably 100 hours of YouTube videos of city council meetings from all over the country,” says Letts, who also stars as the mayor. “If you suffer from insomnia, let me recommend you watch 100 hours of YouTube videos of city council meetings, because they’re crashingly boring. But they’re also very funny in their own way.”
For a play about politics on Broadway in 2020 (and one written in 2016, no less), The Minutes is both apolitical and shockingly current. “I don’t think the words ‘Republicans’ or ‘Democrats’ are ever spoken in the play,” Letts says. The Minutes is not intended to be a comedy about political party differences; what Letts and Shapiro are interested in is engaging audiences about bigger questions. “How do we conduct ourselves as a civilization, as a society, particularly an American society?” Letts says. “And I think it’s asking some very basic questions about the kind of society you want to live in. Where do you want to live and how would you have us conduct ourselves in the world? And I hope it’s doing it in a comic and accessible way.”
Beyond local government and its politicians, Letts points out that the way we behave in any meeting—be it in an office, during a job interview, or anywhere else—is a different mode of conduct than in a restaurant or with friends. “You see a lot of different types surround the table that you recognize,” Letts says, adding that he also drew upon meetings with at the Steppenwolf Theatre for the play, “though I won’t mention any of them by name.”
“You know, you could watch it several times because you could track one person through the whole thing once you actually know the plot of the piece,” Shapiro adds. “It would be fun to be able to watch your favorite character and how they dealt with all of these little moments that you didn’t understand the first time you saw it.”
Those little moments add up to what Shapiro refers to as “a tipping point” in the play. In fact, it’s a major reason the play is 90 minutes long, with no intermission. “It takes a really long time for things to either go bad or get good, but the truth is that there is a tipping point,” Shapiro says. “There’s a moment where you go from being OK to not OK. There’s a moment where you were healthy, and then there’s a moment where you aren’t. There’s a moment where the German town became a Nazi village. There’s a moment, those things happen. And I think it’s important to know that that can happen in minutes.”
