‘Othello’ and ‘Hamlet’ Cast Updates
The two major Shakespeare productions opening in New York in September - the John Ortiz-Philip Seymour Hoffman “Othello” and the Jude Law “Hamlet” - separately announced their complete casts this morning for their limited runs this fall.
Messrs. Ortiz (Othello) and Hoffman (Iago) will be joined in the production by Julian Acosta, (Roderigo), Gaius Charles (Duke/Lodovico), Jessica Chastain (Desdemona), Liza Colon-Zayas (Emilia), Saidah Arrika Ekulona (Montano/Bianca), and LeRoy McClain (Cassio).
Ms. Ekulona drew rave reviews this year as Mama Nadi, the brothel owner in Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Ruined” at Manhattan Theater Club. Mr. Charles is best known as the character Smash in NBC’s “Friday Night Lights,” while Ms. Colon-Zayas has worked for years with Mr. Ortiz and Mr. Hoffman as members of New York’s LAByrinth Theatre Company.
Directed by Peter Sellars, “Othello” is scheduled to run for only 23 performances, and will begin previews at New York University’s Skirball Center on Sept. 12 - the same night, as it happens, that “Hamlet” begins previews at the Broadhurst Theater on Broadway.
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Mr. Law, who has been playing “Hamlet” in the West End this summer, will come to Broadway with the same company of actors who have been with him in the Donmar Warehouse production in London, as well as in Elsinore, where the production will run Aug. 25-30.
The actors include Ron Cook (as Polonius and the first gravedigger), Peter Eyre (the ghost of Hamlet’s Father and the Player King), Geraldine James (Gertrude), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Ophelia), and Kevin R. McNally (Claudius). Ms. James was last seen on Broadway in 1990 as Portia in “The Merchant of Venice” (which starred Dustin Hoffman as Shylock), a performance that earned her a Tony Award nomination for best actress in a play.
“Hamlet” is scheduled to run for 12 weeks only.
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