Joe and Jill Biden Make First Public Appearance Since White House Exit at Broadway’s ‘Othello’ Premiere: ‘Riveting, Brilliant, Bravo!’
Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal’s “Othello” premiere, one of the hottest tickets on Broadway, had Oscar-winning actors, Grammy recipients and legendary directors in the audience on Sunday night — plus a former president and first lady.
Joe and Jill Biden made their first public appearance at the Barrymore Theatre’s premiere since leaving the White House after President Donald Trump’s inauguration this year. The Bidens have kept a mostly low profile and haven’t been spotted out and about in the recent weeks, though Joe Biden signed with CAA for representation last month. He was previously repped by CAA from 2017 to 2020 when he published his bestselling memoir.
Jill Biden posted photos of the couple’s “date night” on Instagram and gave a short review of the classic Shakespeare play. “Riveting…brilliant…bravo!” she wrote.
Washington and Gyllenhaal star as the tragic general Othello and his manipulative advisor Iago, respectivaly, in Broadway’s first staging of the play in more than 40 years. The cast includes Molly Osborne as Othello’s wife Desdemona, “Snow White” star Andrew Burnap as lieutenant Cassio, Kimber Elayne Sprawl as Iago’s wife Emilia and more.
This month during its previews, “Othello” made $2.8 million in one week, the most ever for a non-musical show on Broadway. Its average ticket price was $361 during its first week of previews, more than double the second-highest average ticket of $155 for “The Outsiders.”
Other opening night guests included Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Bassett, Spike Lee, Jamie Lee Curtis, Colman Domingo, Ariana DeBose, Corey Hawkins, Blair Underwood, Sherri Shepard, Tamron Hall, Christine Baranski, Jennifer Nettles, Keegan-Michael Key, Anna Wintour, Al Roker, Rosie Perez, Blair Underwood and more.
Director Kenny Leon and Washington aren’t strangers to Shakespeare. Leon staged “Much Ado About Nothing” at New York’s “Shakespeare in the Park,” and Washington has starred in “Coriolanus,” “The Tragedy of Richard III” and “Julius Caesar” on Broadway, plus “The Tragedy of Macbeth” and “Much Ado About Nothing” on the big screen. The two also worked together on “Fences,” which won Washington a Tony for lead actor, and “A Raisin in the Sun,” which nabbed Leon best direction of a play.
To set his “Othello” apart from other adaptations, Leon set his show in the near future and made Othello a four-star Army general.
“The play explores everything about humanity and life, so it’s a perfect perfect time, especially when we’re exploring the impact of lies and rumors,” Leon told Variety. “I’ve seen a lot of bad Shakespeare. You can go wrong by putting it too far in the past, and if you set it too far in the future, you’re playing down to the audience and they can’t understand it. I don’t want to do it right now, because I don’t want it to be clouded by whoever is in political office. The near future to me was just enough away from us that we feel like it’s still about me. It’s still now, but it’s not now.”
Joe and Jill Biden made their first public appearance at the Barrymore Theatre’s premiere since leaving the White House after President Donald Trump’s inauguration this year. The Bidens have kept a mostly low profile and haven’t been spotted out and about in the recent weeks, though Joe Biden signed with CAA for representation last month. He was previously repped by CAA from 2017 to 2020 when he published his bestselling memoir.
Jill Biden posted photos of the couple’s “date night” on Instagram and gave a short review of the classic Shakespeare play. “Riveting…brilliant…bravo!” she wrote.
Washington and Gyllenhaal star as the tragic general Othello and his manipulative advisor Iago, respectivaly, in Broadway’s first staging of the play in more than 40 years. The cast includes Molly Osborne as Othello’s wife Desdemona, “Snow White” star Andrew Burnap as lieutenant Cassio, Kimber Elayne Sprawl as Iago’s wife Emilia and more.
This month during its previews, “Othello” made $2.8 million in one week, the most ever for a non-musical show on Broadway. Its average ticket price was $361 during its first week of previews, more than double the second-highest average ticket of $155 for “The Outsiders.”
Other opening night guests included Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Bassett, Spike Lee, Jamie Lee Curtis, Colman Domingo, Ariana DeBose, Corey Hawkins, Blair Underwood, Sherri Shepard, Tamron Hall, Christine Baranski, Jennifer Nettles, Keegan-Michael Key, Anna Wintour, Al Roker, Rosie Perez, Blair Underwood and more.
Director Kenny Leon and Washington aren’t strangers to Shakespeare. Leon staged “Much Ado About Nothing” at New York’s “Shakespeare in the Park,” and Washington has starred in “Coriolanus,” “The Tragedy of Richard III” and “Julius Caesar” on Broadway, plus “The Tragedy of Macbeth” and “Much Ado About Nothing” on the big screen. The two also worked together on “Fences,” which won Washington a Tony for lead actor, and “A Raisin in the Sun,” which nabbed Leon best direction of a play.
To set his “Othello” apart from other adaptations, Leon set his show in the near future and made Othello a four-star Army general.
“The play explores everything about humanity and life, so it’s a perfect perfect time, especially when we’re exploring the impact of lies and rumors,” Leon told Variety. “I’ve seen a lot of bad Shakespeare. You can go wrong by putting it too far in the past, and if you set it too far in the future, you’re playing down to the audience and they can’t understand it. I don’t want to do it right now, because I don’t want it to be clouded by whoever is in political office. The near future to me was just enough away from us that we feel like it’s still about me. It’s still now, but it’s not now.”