Kenny Leon Wants Audiences to 'Recognize Truth' in His New OTHELLO

Shakespeare is making a comeback in 2025! Othello, last seen on Broadway in 1982, returns to the stage with Kenny Leon at the helm. The production stars Tony Award winner and two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington as Othello, the noble Moor of Venice and commanding warrior general, and Tony Award nominee and Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal as Iago, the ambitious lieutenant and masterful manipulator

With Othello, Leon returns to the rehearsal room for the third time this season. He brought Samm-Art Williams' Home to Broadway last June and was the mastermind behind the recent revival of Our Town, which opened last fall. How did he land on Shakespeare for his next project?

"[Denzel Washington and I] talked about two or three plays, and we landed on Othello." he explained during a break from rehearsals. "I thought it was the right time in his career to do it, the right time in my career for me to do it, and the first thing he asked was, 'Well, who’s going to play Iago?' and I said, 'The person I would like- I’ve never worked with him before, but I’ve seen him on stage, I’ve met him before - Jake Gyllenhaal would be perfect. Because he has the complexity, and the courage not to just play a bad guy, he would find the humanity in it.”

Spurned for promotion, Iago’s relentless quest for vengeance against Othello and his wife, Desdemona plunges them into a shocking web of deception and betrayal.

Joining Washington and Gyllenhaal are Molly Osborne as ‘Desdemona’, Tony Award winner Andrew Burnap as ‘Cassio’, Anthony Michael Lopez as ‘Roderigo’, Daniel Pearce as ‘Brabantio’, and Kimber Elayne Sprawl as ‘Emilia’. The cast also features Neal Bledsoe as ‘The Duke of Venice’, Julee Cerda as ‘Bianca’, Ezra Knight as ‘Montano’, Gene Gillette as ‘Gratiano’, Rob Heaps as ‘Lodovico’, ensemble members William Connell, Ty Fanning, Ben Graney, Abiola Obatolu, Daniel Reece, Christina Sajous, Sarah Thorn, and Greg Wood.

Leon shared why it's special for him to bring Washington and Gyllenhaal, two huge film stars, back to the Broadway stage, revealing, "They had their beginnings in the American theatre. So, I think now is a good time to come to a Broadway theatre. Because a lot of the film world, a lot of that has changed in the last ten years. A lot of it is streaming, it’s adult soap operas, it’s driven by the finances.

"I think theatre, to me, is the real place to engage in storytelling with human beings on stage. So, to have these two actors do something so naked and so theatrical and so truthful, I think it will have huge impact."

"Lately, I’ve felt that all you have to do with Shakespeare is get out of the way." Leon said, speaking to his vision for the new Broadway production. "And I felt like if you believe in the writing, you don’t have to add things to it. So it led me to do it on an open stage. The only thing that moves is the shapes of the rooms. So, sometimes it’s a long rectangular shape, sometimes it’s a square, sometimes it’s a circle, but I want people to come in and see Denzel Washington and Gyllenhaal, embrace these characters.

"But it’s on a naked stage, and you need actors who can land in truth, because audiences can’t be fooled. They know truth. They recognize truth. And I knew I had to cast accordingly. I want people to listen. I want them to be able to use the theatre as fuel for what they have to do in their daily lives."

Othello will open on March 23, 2025 at the Barrymore Theatre. View the full 2025 Spring Preview!