Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will once again make history when she becomes the first Justice to ever grace the Broadway stage.
Jackson, 54, who is the first Black woman and former federal public defender to ever be sworn into the highest court in America, will make her Broadway debut with a one-night-only, walk-on role in the Tony-nominated musical comedy & Juliet. An entirely new ensemble role was created just for Jackson.
The producers have announced that Jackson’s special appearance will occur during the production’s 8 p.m. show on Saturday, December 14. Following the show, audience members will be able to stay for a talkback with the Justice.
In her new memoir, Lovely One, Jackson wrote about her “fantasy” of appearing on a Broadway stage, writing: “I, a Miami girl from a modest background with an unabashed love of theater, dreamed of one day ascending to the highest court in the land — and I had said so in one of my supplemental application essays [to Harvard]. I expressed that I wished to attend Harvard as I believed it might help me ‘to fulfill my fantasy of becoming the first Black, female Supreme Court justice to appear on a Broadway stage.’”
Jackson was appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022. Her appointment became a fulfillment of Biden’s pledge during his 2020 campaign that he would nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court.
The acclaimed & Juliet has been playing at New York City’s Stephen Sondheim Theatre since November 2022, where it opened after its pre-Broadway engagement in Toronto.
It had previously run on London’s West End from November 2019 to March 2023 at the Shaftesbury Theatre.
& Juliet is a pop musical and acts as a sequel to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It imagines a world in which Juliet doesn’t kill herself and instead gathers her friends and escapes Verona. The group travels to Paris, where Juliet is introduced to an entirely new world full of love, parties and drama.
According to Playbill, & Juliet “uses some of the most beloved pop songs of the last three decades to tell a multi-generational story of self-discovery, empowerment and love.”
Written by Schitt’s Creek writer David West Read with music from legendary music producer and songwriter Max Martin, & Juliet earned nine Tony Award nominations in 2023, including Best Musical.
