GIN GAME Stars James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson Speak Out Against Entrance Applause

Entrance applause, or clapping when famous actors first appear on stage, has become a common tradition in Broadway theaters. However, James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson, stars of the new Broadway production of D.L. Coburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, The Gin Game, have spoken out against it.

Tyson told ABC News, "It can be very distracting...I wish there was a way for actors to kill it."

They note Jones saying, "I think the ideal is you walk onstage and they're so rapt by what's happening to you that they don't think of you as an actor. They get lost themselves. That's home free, right there...That's what we all want. Forget the entrance applause, please."

Currently in previews, Opening night for The Gin Game is set for Wednesday, October 14 at the Golden Theatre (252 West 45th Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue). The production will play a limited engagement through Sunday, January 10, 2016. Tickets are available on Telecharge.

In The Gin Game, Weller Martin (James Earl Jones) and Fonsia Dorsey (Cicely Tyson) meet on the porch of their nursing home and strike up a friendship, with Weller teaching Fonsia how to play gin rummy. As they play, they share stories about the lives they led in the outside world. But when Fonsia wins every hand, Weller becomes increasingly frustrated, until their gin games and conversations become a battleground, with each player exposing the other's failures, disappointments and insecurities.

Mr. Jones and Ms. Tyson are sharing a Broadway stage for the first time since 1966, when they appeared in A Hand Is On The Gate at the Longacre Theatre. They also starred in the long-running Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's The Blacks. They starred opposite each other in the film The River Niger and the TV movie "Heat Wave." Mr. Jones is a two-time Tony Award winner (Fences, The Great White Hope), three-time Emmy Award winner ("Heat Wave," "Gabriel's Fire," "Summer's End") and the recipient of a Grammy Award and an Honorary Academy Award. Ms. Tyson is a Tony Award-winner (The Trip to Bountiful), a three-time Emmy Award winner ("The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," "The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All") and an Academy Award nominee (Sounder).

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos