Kenny Leon Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

The Tony award-winning play Our Town is getting another revival on Broadway!

The upcoming fall Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town will feature a 28-actor cast led by Jim Parsons, Zoey Deutch, Katie Holmes, Ephraim Sykes and Richard Thomas, producers announced today.

Home, the Samm-Art Williams play directed by Kenny Leon and opening on Broadway this summer, has announced its cast.

Katie Holmes was one of the guests’ at this week’s Roundabout Theatre Gala. The event commemorated the company’s history in New York and the figures that have contributed with it and the theater scene in the city over the past years. For the occasion, Holmes wore a stunning black dress that showcased her arms.

Stars like Katie Holmes, Alan Cumming, and Rose Byrne are all joining Broadway’s best talent in supporting the Roundabout Theatre Company!

There are few producers in live television with the kind of career Don Mischer has had in television, a career spanning six decades and just about every major event from the Oscars to the Olympics to Obama and all in between. Just a sampling of his credits include the Opening Ceremonies of both the 1996 Summer Olympics and 2002 Winter Olympics; the Super Bowl Halftime Shows with Michael Jackson, Prince, Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen; the Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial; Motown 25; the Democratic National Convention; the 100th anniversary of Carnegie Hall; the Academy Awards and Emmy Awards; and so many many other events in our lives.

EXCLUSIVE: Yellowstone star Kelly Reilly and Oscar nominee David Strathairn (Good Night, And Good Luck) are in final negotiations to join Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) and Boyd Holbrook (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) in Last Meals.

Tony winner Kenny Leon will direct a new Broadway production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the fall of 2024, the first revival of the classic play since the 2002 production that starred Paul Newman as the stage manager.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon will bring Grover’s Corners back to Broadway. The acclaimed director of “A Raisin in the Sun” and “Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch,” will tackle Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” The show is scheduled to open in the fall of 2024. This will be the first major Broadway revival of the classic play in more than 20 years, the last being a 2002 production that featured Paul Newman.

Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp through the Cotton Patch (★★★★☆) is a complete con artist and long-winded orator. He’s got the best intentions.

Broadway‘s critically acclaimed Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch starring Leslie Odom, Jr. has extended its limited engagement by four weeks, with closing night at the Music Box Theatre now set for Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024.

Long before Slave Play, decades before Ain’t No Mo, there was Purlie Victorious, the Ossie Davis comedy masterwork that, like those descendant plays, fused broad comedy, satirical minstrelsy, racial satire and still-relevant social commentary to create a play that is so encompassing in its views of history and legacy, so generous in its humanity and pinpoint sharp in its take on debts long owed and now demanded that Kenny Leon’s revival, opening tonight on Broadway, feels as current and bracing as a folding chair.

The previously announced Broadway revival of the Ossie Davis comedy Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch starring Leslie Odom, Jr. will begin previews on Thursday, September 7, at The Music Box Theatre, with an opening date to be announced.

New location? No script? No rehearsal? No sweat.

Jenelle Riley Deputy Awards and Features Editor This article first appeared as part of Jenelle Riley’s Acting Up newsletter – to subscribe for early content and weekly updates on all things acting, visit the Acting Up signup page. In “A Soldier’s Play,” Captain Richard Davenport isn’t meant to sing. But when you cast legendary baritone Norm Lewis in the role, you take advantage of his talents. Lewis can be seen in the national touring production, currently playing at L.A.’s Ahmanson Theatre — and it’s thanks to director Kenny Leon that audiences get to hear Davenport sing at certain points it the show.  Written by Charles Fuller, “A Soldier’s Play” is set on an Army base in 1944, when the military is still segregated. Captain Davenport, a rare Black officer, is sent to investigate the shooting of Sergeant Vernon Waters. Though Black himself, Waters despises and persecutes Black men who he feels perpetuate old-fashioned stereotypes. 

Suzan-Lori Parks’ acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize-winning play Topdog/Underdog debuted Off Broadway in 2001, so it’s a safe bet that a significant portion of the audience at last fall’s limited engagement Broadway revival knew how things would end for the brothers Booth and Lincoln. Those character names alone leave little room for uncertainty.

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday. Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Blair Underwood (American Crime Story), Victoria Pedretti (You), Isha Blaaker (The Flight Attendant) and Finn Wittrock (Ratched) are among the final major additions to Academy Award nominee Ava DuVernay’s latest film Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, based on the bestseller of the same name by Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson.

Tony & Grammy winner Leslie Odom, Jr. will star in a new Broadway production of the classic American comedy Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch by Ossie Davis. Purlie Victorious will be staged by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon, with the production scheduled to begin in late summer 2023 for the 2023-2024 Broadway season.

Tony Award nominee Ato Blankson-Wood (Slave Play) will take on the title role of Hamlet this summer, starring in the Public Theater’s extended, nine-week Free Shakespeare in the Park production at The Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Kenny Leon will direct.

Many decades after her brilliant and unsettling plays became seen Off Broadway, at regional theaters or, sometimes, not at all, the great playwright Adrienne Kennedy is making her Broadway debut tonight when her 1992 work Ohio State Murders opens as the inaugural production at the newly renamed James Earl Jones Theatre.

Twenty years after it first arrived to shake up a complacent Broadway and make a Pulitzer Prize winner of its author Suzan-Lori Parks, Topdog/Underdog has lost none of its vitality and power and cunning. Director Kenny Leon proves that in a vibrant new production opening tonight at the Golden Theatre.

The African American Film Critics Association (AAFCA) will present AAFCA Salutes Broadway on Monday, October 17th at the Lamb’s Club in the heart of New York’s theater district.

William Earl “Death of a Salesman” actor Wendell Pierce, “The Piano Lesson” director LaTanya Richardson Jackson and “Till” star John Douglas Thompson are among the honorees set for the inaugural Salute to Broadway presented by the African American Film Critics Association. The event is set for Oct. 17 at The Lambs Club in the heart of Midtown’s theater district. “It’s no secret that some of our greatest actors have come from the stage or have tested their chops on it,” said Gil Robertson, co-founder of AAFCA. “Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis are just a handful of our beloved icons for which this was true, with Tony winners Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Audra McDonald, Adrienne Warren and Myles Frost among those continuing that legacy. As a reliable pipeline for outstanding Black talent in front of the camera as well as behind it, Hollywood has benefited greatly from this esteemed training ground and AAFCA Salutes Broadway celebrates that rich heritage.”

Gordon Cox Theater Editor How is a Pulitzer Prize-winning play like a Marvel superhero? Ask Suzan-Lori Parks, the acclaimed writer whose 2001 outing “Topdog/Underdog” was her first show to arrive on Broadway after she’d spent years turning heads downtown with smaller-scale work. Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below:

Additional casting and the full creative team for the Broadway premiere of Adrienne Kennedy’s Ohio State Murders were announced today, with Bryce Pinkham (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) and Lizan Mitchell (Cullud Wattah) joining previously announced star Audra McDonald.

Steven Pasquale has been tapped as the male lead opposite Neve Campbell in Avalon, ABC’s drama series based on Michael Connelly’s short story, from David E. Kelley, A+E Studios and 20th Television. Avalon, which received a straight-to-series order from ABC, takes place in the city of Avalon on Catalina Island, where L.A. Sheriff’s Department Detective Nicole “Nic” Searcy (Campbell) heads up a small office. Catalina has a local population that serves more than 1 million tourists a year, and each day when the ferries arrive, hundreds of potential new stories enter the island. Detective Searcy is pulled into a career-defining mystery that will challenge everything she knows about herself and the island.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media“Topdog/Underdog” will return to Broadway this fall with Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II appearing in the two lead roles.The revival is timed to the 20th anniversary of Suzan-Lori Parks’ play, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama when it debuted. Kenny Leon, the Tony Award-winning director of the 2014 revival of “A Raisin in the Sun” and 2020’s “A Soldier’s Story,” will direct “Topdog/Underdog.”The strictly limited, 16-week engagement will begin previews on Sept. 27 at the John Golden Theatre and will officially open on Oct.

A world premiere musical stage adaptation that reimagines the hit 1983 Eddie Murphy-Dan Aykroyd comedy Trading Places has cast Freestyle Love Supreme‘s Aneesa Folds in the role that made Murphy a Hollywood superstar, with Bryce Pinkham (Broadway’s A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) in the Aykroyd spot.

Helen Mirren shines in a silver gown on the red carpet at the 2022 Roundabout Theatre Company Gala at The Ziegfeld Ballroom on Monday (March 7) in New York City.

NAACP Image Awards has officially been kicked off! As usual, this year's ceremony honoring people of color across television, music, literature and film is preceded by a week-long celebration, with five nights of virtual awards leading up to Saturday's live telecast.Hosted by returning emcee and seven-time NAACP Image Awards winner Anthony Anderson, the ceremony will include Issa Rae, Kerry Washington, LL Cool J, Morgan Freeman, Questlove, Tiffany Haddish, Zendaya and more presenting awards, while Samuel L. Jackson accepts the NAACP Chairman's Award and Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project, receives the Social Justice Impact Award.The preceding non-televised nights will be hosted by actor and comedian Affion Crockett, with awards presented by Cory Hardrict, Demetrius Shipp Jr., Khleo Thomas, Lori Harvey, Wendy Raquel Robinson and more.

Lauren Ridloff has just been awarded a big honour.

NEW YORK -- Audra McDonald is going from host of the Tony Awards to another stage role.The six-time Tony-winner will return to Broadway in the play “Ohio State Murders” by Adrienne Kennedy, directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaAudra McDonald, the undisputed queen of live theater, will return to Broadway in “Ohio State Murders,” a new play by Adrienne Kennedy.The show, which will look at the destructiveness and corrosiveness of racism in this country, will be directed by Kenny Leon, the architect of the recent acclaimed revivals of “Fences” and “A Soldier’s Play.” Despite the fact that Kennedy has been working at the top of her game for decades, having written the likes of

Michael Appler On Wednesday evening in New York City, Anna Wintour, Huma Abiden, Joel Gray, Don Lemon, Phylicia Rashad, Kenny Leon and a host of New York theater luminaries filed into the Golden Theatre on Broadway for the opening night of Keenan Scott II’s “Thoughts of a Colored Man”—intrigued, arguably, to attend a play so polemically titled as desiring to take part in the celebrated march of Black playwrights to Broadway this season. “15 years ago, while I was still in undergrad studying

Black Theatre United released its New Deal for Broadway, a sweeping commitment to create more equitable practices in the theater with buy-in from every facet of the industry. The effort was marshaled by a coalition of Broadway’s best-known and most-decorated talent, including Audra McDonald, Billy Porter, LaChanze, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Vanessa Williams and Kenny Leon.