James Earl Jones News

Ebony Repertory Theatre (ERT - Founder/Producer Wren T. Brown) will present Phillip Hayes Dean's (Drama Desk-winner for The Sty of the Blind Pig) powerful and moving play PAUL ROBESON. Dean will also stage the ERT production, which will mark his Los Angeles directorial debut. Two-time Emmy Award-winner Keith David (Fox's new series Enlisted) will star in this one-man play accompanied by pianist/musical director Byron J. Smith (working with numerous artists including Wynton Marsalis, Barbra Streisand, Bebe Winnans). Performances will run March 12 - 30, 2014 with an official press opening on March 14 at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center (4718 West Washington Boulevard) in Los Angeles.

North Carolina Theatre (NCT), the region's premier producer of professional Broadway musicals, in association with Broadway Series South, is excited to announce that casting has begun for their February 2014 production of LES MISERABLES directed by Dave Clemmons which will play at Raleigh Memorial Auditorium in the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts. This will be the theatre's first time producing this timeless classic.

The Village Voice, the nation's first and largest alternative weekly newspaper, announced today that esteemed critic and longtime judge of the awards, Michael Feingold, will serve as Obie Chairman for the 59th Annual Village Voice OBIE Awards, to be presented Monday, May 19, at Webster Hall.

Stephen C. Byrd and Alia Jones-Harvey, Broadway's leading African American producers, will be honored with Pioneer of the Arts Awards at the Riant Theatre's Strawberry One-Act Festival 25th Season Launch Party on Sunday, February 9, a free, fun cultural day of the arts for adults and youngsters from 12noon to 9pm at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1040 Grand Concourse, between 165th & 166th Street in the Bronx.

Stephen C. Byrd and Alia Jones-Harvey, Broadway's leading African American producers, will be honored with Pioneer of the Arts Awards at the Riant Theatre's Strawberry One-Act Festival 25th Season Launch Party on Sunday, February 9, a free, fun cultural day of the arts for adults and youngsters from 12noon to 9:00pm at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1040 Grand Concourse, between 165th & 166th Street in the Bronx.

North Carolina Theatre (NCT), the region's premier producer of professional Broadway musicals, in association with Broadway Series South, is excited to announce that casting has begun for their February 2014 production of LES MISERABLES directed by Dave Clemmons which will play at Raleigh Memorial Auditorium in the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts. This will be the theatre's first time producing this timeless classic.

On the next episode of CBS's THE BIG BANG THEORY titled 'The Convention Conundrum,' after the guys can't get Comic-Con tickets, Sheldon tries to hold his own convention and winds up spending a wild night with James Earl Jones.

Following a critically acclaimed reading at 2013's Pride Performing Arts Festival, Second Thought Theatre Associate Artist Alex Organ will direct the first play in STT's 10th anniversary season, Cock, by Mike Bartlett. Cock, a wildly comic exploration of identity and sexuality, will begin with previews today, January 29 and will run through February 22 at Bryant Hall on the Kalita Humphreys Campus.

In a feature discussing upcoming HD broadcasts of theatre productions around the world, The New York Times revealed that Ed Greenberg and Lee deBoer's Broadway Near You is planning to distribute the recent Australian production of DRIVING MISS DAISY, starring Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones, to cinemas this spring. The show also has first-look deals with producers, including the Lincoln Center Theater. Still no word on a possible Broadway production.

Amas Musical Theatre, New York City's award-winning pioneer in diversity and multi-ethnic casting in the performing arts since 1968, will celebrate its 45th Anniversary at a gala benefit on Monday, March 31st, 2014 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center (East 25th Street between Lexington and 3rd Avenues). Honorary Chair for the event is veteran Broadway virtuoso Maurice Hines.

Bucks County Playhouse (BCP) has announced the launch of a 2014 winter concert series, kicking off with the World Premiere of JUSTIN GUARINI LOVESICK, a new show from Justin Guarini and directed by Gordon Greenberg.

Could Book of Mormon's Bobby Lopez be next in line to join the elite circle of entertainers?

Philly audiences are treated to the magic of this classic before it rides off on a National Tour.

The Screen Actors Guild Foundation has released the newest video to its children's literacy website Storyline Online (storylineonline.net): I Need My Monster, written by Amanda Noll, illustrated by Howard McWilliam and read by legendary actress, singer and author Rita Moreno.

The Grammy-winning Ladysmith Black Mambazo will stop in Storrs on a U.S. tour with its latest album Always With Us Saturday, Feb. 1, 2014. The group with the Zulu sound of a single voice despite a thick stack of harmonies, made popular on this continent three decades ago via Paul Simon's Graceland album, will also deliver a tribute to Nelson Mandela in its 8 p.m. performance at Jorgensen.

Today in 1931, Broadway veteran James Earl Jones was born. He has won Tony awards in 1969 for The Great White Hope and in 1987 for Fences. He has acted in many Shakespearean roles: Othello, King Lear, Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Abhorson in Measure for Measure, and Claudius in Hamlet. On April 7, 2005, James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams headed the cast in an African-American Broadway revival version of On Golden Pond, directed by Leonard Foglia and produced by Jeffrey Finn. In February 2008, he starred on Broadway as Big Daddy in a limited-run, all-African-American production of Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Debbie Allen and mounted at the Broadhurst Theatre. In October 2010, Jones returned to the Broadway stage in Alfred Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy along with Vanessa Redgrave at the Golden Theatre. In November 2011, Jones starred in Driving Miss Daisy in London's West End, and on November 12 Jones received his honorary Oscar in front of the audience at the Wyndham's Theatre, which was presented to him by Ben Kingsley.

Morgan Freeman will present the SAG 50th Life Achievement Award to Rita Moreno at the 20th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards

Following a critically acclaimed reading at 2013's Pride Performing Arts Festival, Second Thought Theatre Associate Artist Alex Organ will direct the first play in STT's 10th anniversary season, Cock, by Mike Bartlett. Cock, a wildly comic exploration of identity and sexuality, will begin with previews on January 29 and will run through February 22 at Bryant Hall on the Kalita Humphreys Campus. Tickets to Cock are on sale now.

Led by founder and leader Joseph Shabalala, Ladysmith Black Mambazo now celebrates more than 50 years of joyous and uplifting music that marries the intricate rhythms and harmonies of their native South African musical traditions to the sounds and sentiments of Christian gospel music. In those years, the a cappella vocal group has created a musical and spiritual alchemy that has touched a worldwide audience representing every corner of the religious, cultural, and ethnic landscape. Their musical efforts over the past five decades have garnered praise and accolades within the recording industry, but also solidified their identity as a cultural force to be reckoned with.