Oscar winner Forest Whitaker has found a role for his first appearance on Broadway. The actor will star in a new production of the Eugene O’Neill play Hughie.
Whitaker will play Erie Smith, the hustler who talks about his life with a hotel night clerk, notes The New York Times. The play was written in the early 1940s and is set in 1928 Manhattan. However, it was not produced on Broadway until 1964, with Jason Robards as Erie.
As Deadline notes, the play was also staged in 1975, with a Tony nominated performance from Ben Gazzara, and in 1996 with al Pacino.
Michael Grandage, a 2010 Tony winner for Red will direct, with Darren Bagert producing with the Shubert Organization and The Michael Grandage Company. It will be staged at the Shubert theater this spring in a limited run. There were no dates set.
Whitaker just starred in Southpaw and is currently filming the Star Wars stand-alone film Rogue One. He won an Oscar for 2006’s The Last King of Scotland.
image courtesy of INFphoto.com