We recently told you that Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker would make his Broadway debut next spring in a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Hughie. At that time, details on additional casting, dates, and the venue were scarce. However, we can now plug those holes with updated information. Stage veteran and Tony Award winner Frank Wood will star alongside Whitaker in the play that is scheduled to open on February 25 at the Booth Theater.
Hughie is a short, two-character play by Eugene O’Neill set in the lobby of a small hotel in midtown New York during the summer of 1928. The play is what’s known as a two-hander, a term for a play with only two main characters. It’s about the recently deceased night clerk of a grim hotel on Manhattan’s West Side who’s still mourned by “Erie Smith,” a drunk and hustler keen on impressing Hughie’s replacement, “Charlie Hughes,” with memories of past hijinks and adventures.
Whitaker will star as “Erie Smith” and Wood will take on the role of “Charlie Hughes.” Tony winner Michael Grandage, who also helmed the Tony-winning Red and the current West End production Photograph 51 starring Nicole Kidman, will direct the play.
Most of us are accustomed to seeing Broadway newcomer Whitaker in films such as “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” “Bird,” and “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.” In 2007, he won an Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in 2006’s “The Last King of Scotland.” He also received Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards for his performance. He is slated to appear next on the big screen in “Star Wars: Rogue One.” Whitaker is also a noted director having directed the iconic film “Waiting To Exhale” starring Whitney Houston, Loretta Devine, and Angela Bassett.
Wood won a Tony Award in 1999 for Best Featured Actor in a Play for Side Man. He played “Bill” in the Broadway production of August: Osage County.
Hughie was last seen on Broadway in 1996 at the Circle in the Square Theatre in a production directed by and starring Al Pacino. Previews for the production will begin on February 5.
