Roundabout Theatre Company will launch a 20-week North American tour of its production of Charles Fuller's A Soldier's Play. Tony-winning director Kenny Leon will return to direct the staging, winner of the 2020 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, with Tony nominee Norm Lewis in the role of Captain Richard Davenport.
Performances will begin December 2022, with full casting and schedule to be announced.
Set in 1944 on a U.S. army base in the south, A Soldier's Play follows an officer's race against his white leadership to unravel the crime of a black sergeant's murder. Fuller won the Pulitzer Prize for the work in 1982, but the 2020 Roundabout revival was its Broadway premiere.
“As an institution committed to shining new light on classics, Roundabout was proud to produce the long-overdue Broadway premiere of A Soldier’s Play," says Roundabout Artistic Director and CEO Todd Haimes. "On Broadway, I was thrilled to see Charles Fuller’s work and Kenny Leon’s spectacular vision get the recognition it deserved. Now, the opportunity to bring this production to cities across North America allows us to continue elevating the legacy of this great, American masterpiece."
“It’s an honor to direct Charles Fuller’s masterwork for audiences around the country,” adds Leon. “Anyone who has seen Norm on the stage or screen knows that he is a remarkably powerful presence—a true force-of-nature—and I can’t wait to see what will happen when we have that power at the center of this play.”
Lewis was most recently seen on Broadway this season in Douglas Lyon's Chicken & Biscuits. He was Tony nominated for his title role in the 2012 production of The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess. His Broadway credits also include Once on This Island, The Little Mermaid, The Wild Party, and The Phantom of the Opera, in which he made history as the first Black performer to play the Phantom on Broadway. Lewis' television and film credits include Scandal, Pose, Central Park, Da 5 Bloods, and Christmas in Tune.
The Broadway creative team will also return for the tour production: set design by Derek McLane, costume design by Dede Ayite, lighting design by Allen Lee Hughes, and sound design by Dan Moses Schreier. The tour of A Soldier’s Play is produced by Roundabout Theatre Company and Tamar Climan.
