A few years after appearing in “A Raisin in the Sun,” Denzel Washington is on his way back to Broadway in Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh” directed by George C. Wolfe with previews slated for next March and opening in April.
Washington will play Theodore “Hickey” Hickman, a hardware salesman whom the others wait for at the start of the play and who soon becomes the center of the action and conversation.
The production, in which Washington plays a role last portrayed on Broadway by Kevin Spacey, is slated to play at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, 242 West 54th St, in a production produced by Scott Rudin.
“The Iceman Cometh” is scheduled to begin previews March 22, 2018 and open April 26, 2018 for its 14-week run.
Denzel Washington marks his third appearance in a Scott Rudin Broadway production, most recently on Broadway in “A Raisin in the Sun” after winning a Tony award for “Fences” and then appearing in the movie.
Although he may be more associated with movies than stage, Washington grew up in Mt. Vernon, NY, graduated from Fordham University and went on to study at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco.
He won an Obie in 1981 for his role in the Negro Ensemble Company’s production of “A Soldier’s Play” and made his Broadway debut in Checkmates in 1988, before returning to Broadway to star in “Julius Caesar” in 2005
He also appeared in productions of the New York Shakespeare Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club and the New Federal Theatre in plays as “Richard III,” “The Mighty Gents,””Ceremonies in Dark Old Men” and “When the Chickens Come Home To Roost.”
“The Iceman Cometh,” which was published in 1946, debuted on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theater in 1946 and ran for 136 performances.
Kevin Spacey last played Hickey on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in a 1999 revival of a London production the prior year.
Nathan Lane played Hickey in a 2012 production at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago directed by Robert Falls, opposite Brian Dennehy, who played Larry Slade. That production in 2015 did a six-week reprise at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater.
