James Earl Jones to Star in Westport Country Playhouse’s Thurgood

Tony Award winner James Earl Jones will play the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in Thurgood, a new solo play by George Stevens, Jr., April 30-May 14 at the Westport Country Playhouse in Westport, Connecticut. The production will be directed by Leonard Foglia, and is being co-presented with Boyett Ostar Productions.

The play tells the story of Marshall, who rose from a childhood in the backstreets of Baltimore, to serve on the United States Supreme Court. Stevens is best known as a television producer, writer, and director. He has won 11 Emmy Awards. In 1991, he wrote and directed the television movie Separate but Equal, in which Sidney Poitier played Marshall.

Foglia directed Jones in the Broadway revival of On Golden Pond. He also directed the Broadway revival of Wait Until Dark and Master Class, and recently helmed the Kennedy Center revival of The Subject Was Roses.

Jones is the winner of two Tony Awards, for The Great White Hope and Fences. His many other Broadway credits include Les Blancs, Othello, Paul Robeson, Of Mice and Men, and A Lesson from Aloes. He received an Oscar nomination for the film version of The Great White Hope.