The Shubert Organization Dedicated A Broadway Theatre To James Earl Jones
Image source: PBS
Around these parts, James Earl Jones is known as the voice of the Sith Lord Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise, with a lesser-spoken mix of Coming to America, The Lion King, Field of Dreams, and The Sandlot. However, years before his first film role in Dr. Strangelove, his career began on the Broadway stage, and he was honored for that on Monday.
The Cort Theatre, where Jones’s career began in Dore Schary’s Sunrise at Campobello, has been renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre after 110 years standing, by the Shubert Organization. The theatre just completed an extensive $47 million renovation begun during the early phases of the pandemic. The renaming was announced in March of this year. While Jones himself did not attend, as he is 91 years old while still in an ongoing pandemic compounded by two other public health scares, the ceremony was attended by Samuel L. Jackson, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Stokes Mitchell sang “Make Them Hear You” from Ragtime and Norm Lewis sang “Go the Distance” from Hercules.
Jones did have a private tour last week. His theater career includes your typical Shakespeare like Othello, Hamlet, and King Lear, but also The Iceman Cometh, Of Mice and Men and Driving Miss Daisy. He most recently voiced Vader in this year’s Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries through Respeecher technology.
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Source: Deadline