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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ON WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, PLEASE

DENZEL WASHINGTON &
JAKE GYLLENHAAL
IN
“OTHELLO”
ANNOUNCES
MOLLY OSBORNE
WILL MAKE HER BROADWAY DEBUT AS ‘DESDEMONA’

WRITTEN BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
DIRECTED BY KENNY LEON

COMING TO BROADWAY SPRING 2025
AT A SHUBERT THEATER TO BE ANNOUNCED

PHOTOS OF WASHINGTON, GYLLENHAAL, & OSBORNE
AVAILABLE HERE

SIGN UP FOR MORE INFORMATION
AT WWW.OTHELLOBWAY.COM

New York, NY (July 24, 2024) – Producer Brian Anthony Moreland announced today that Molly Osborne, who has been called “a true rising star” of the English stage (The Evening Standard), will make her Broadway debut next spring as ‘Desdemona’ in William Shakespeare’s Othello opposite Tony Award^® winner and two-time Academy Award^® winner Denzel Washington as the title character and Tony Award nominee and Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal as ‘Iago’ in this new Broadway production, directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon.

In a statement, Kenny Leon said, “I am so excited to welcome Molly Osborne to our Broadway cast of Othello as ‘Desdemona.’ Her unique blend of heart and intellect, coupled with a natural vulnerability, makes her a truly captivating actress. I am thrilled to welcome her to our theatre community and eagerly anticipate collaborating with her on her Broadway debut.”

Osborne made her West End debut in 2018 as ‘Tzeitel’ in Trevor Nunn’s Olivier Award-winning revival of Fiddler on the Roof which originated at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In 2021, she returned to the Menier as ‘Chana’ in Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel’s Indecent. Most recently, she starred in the world premiere musical version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the adaptation of Sara Ryan’s beloved memoir Laughing Boy.

This spring, experience Shakespeare’s epic tale like never before. Tony and Academy Award winner Denzel Washington stars as ‘Othello,’ the noble Moor of Venice and commanding warrior-general. Opposite him, Tony and Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal portrays ‘Iago,’ the ambitious lieutenant and masterful manipulator.

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

Directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon, this production of Othello will play a strictly limited 15-week engagement next spring on Broadway.

Casting for Othello is by Duncan Stewart of ARC Casting with 101 Productions serving as General Managers.

Othello will play Spring 2025 at a Shubert theater to be announced soon along with production dates, additional members of the creative team, and additional casting.

For additional information about Othello, please sign up at www.othellobway.com

BIOGRAPHIES

Denzel Washington (Othello) is a native of Mt. Vernon, NY, and graduated from Fordham University, where he majored in drama. He spent a year at San Francisco’s prestigious American Conservatory Theatre before beginning his professional acting career. Since then, Denzel’s unforgettable performances have garnered him two Academy Awards^®, three Golden Globes^®, and countless other awards.

Washington received his first Academy Award for the historical war drama Glory (1987) and his second for his portrayal of the corrupt cop in the crime thriller, Training Day (2001). Washington won a Tony Award for his performance in Fences, during his return to Broadway in 2010.

Washington’s professional acting career began in New York, where he performed in theater productions such as Ceremonies in Dark Old Men and Othello. He rose to fame when he landed the role as ‘Dr. Phillip Chandler’ on the NBC long-running hit television series, “St. Elsewhere.” His other television credits include “The George McKenna Story,” “License to Kill,” and “Wilma.”

As Washington crossed over into the world of film, he garnered critical acclaim for his portrayal of real-life figures. He earned his first Oscar nomination for Cry Freedom (1987), as South African anti-apartheid activist ‘Steve Biko.’ From there, he went on to portray Muslim minister and human rights activist ‘Malcolm X’ in Malcolm X (1992), boxer ‘Rubin “Hurricane” Carter’ in The Hurricane (1999), football coach ‘Herman Boonein’ in Remember the Titans (2000), poet and educator ‘Melvin B. Tolson’ in The Great Debaters (2007), and drug kingpin ‘Frank Lucas’ in American Gangster (2007). A few of his other beloved credits include: Much Ado About Nothing (1993), A Soldier’s Story (1984), Crimson Tide (1995), Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), and Inside Man (2006).

In 2016, Washington starred in the critically acclaimed film adaptation of August Wilson’s Fences. In addition to producing and directing the adaptation, Washington reprised his original Tony Award-winning role alongside Viola Davis. The film received four Academy Award nominations including Washington for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. His other latest films include Unstoppable (2010) where he reunited with director Tony Scott for the fifth time, 2 Guns (2013) where he starred alongside Mark Wahlberg, and The Equalizer, an action thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua (2014) of which he reprised his role in 2018 for The Equalizer 2 making it the first time Denzel has ever done a sequel. Released in 2023, he resumed his role in the last movie of the trilogy The Equalizer 3. In 2016, Washington teamed up with Antoine Fuqua again for an exciting remake of The Magnificent Seven, which also starred Chris Pratt and Ethan Hawke.

Washington returned to the stage in 2018 when he starred in a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh which was directed by George C. Wolfe. His performance garnered him a Tony Award nomination.

He also starred in Dan Gilroy’s Roman J. Israel, Esq. for which he received multiple Best Actor nominations.

In 2016, he was selected as the recipient for the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the 73^rd Golden Globe Awards, cementing his legacy in Hollywood. He most recently was honored with the AFI Life Achievement award, one of the highest honors for a career in film.

Washington recently produced Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom for Netflix, directed by George C. Wolfe with cast including Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, and Colman Domingo. The Warner Bros thriller The Little Things recently starred Washington alongside Rami Malek and Jared Leto.

Most recently, Washington directed A Journal for Jordan starring Michael B. Jordan and helmed the Joel Coen directed The Tragedy of Macbeth alongside Frances McDormand, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Male Actor in a Leading Role.

Next up, Washington is producing The Piano Lesson and will star in Gladiator 2 from director Ridley Scott and High and Low from director Spike Lee. Washington will also be making his long-awaited return to the stage in Othello, alongside Jake Gyllenhaal.

Jake Gyllenhaal (Iago). An Academy Award and Tony Award nominee, Gyllenhaal is one of the finest actors of his generation. Whether blockbusters, independent films, musicals or plays for the Broadway stage, Gyllenhaal brings an unparalleled passion for his craft. His work as a producer is equally noteworthy and his production company Nine Stories has established itself as a force – sourcing material, developing it from the ground up, collaborating with bold storytellers, and shepherding the projects through release.

Gyllenhaal makes his series debut with “Presumed Innocent” for AppleTV+, which he stars in and executive produced alongside David E. Kelley & J.J. Abrams. The show is the #1 most viewed drama of all time on Apple TV+ and was recently renewed for a second season surrounding an entirely new case, with Gyllenhaal executive producing under his Nine Stories banner. Recently, Gyllenhaal starred in Doug Liman’s reimagination of the 1989 film, Road House, which premiered on Prime Video on March 21 and attracted a record-breaking over 50 million worldwide viewers on Prime Video over its first two weekends, becoming Amazon MGM Studios’ most-watched debut ever worldwide. Following the film’s success, it was announced that Gyllenhaal will reprise the role of ‘Elwood Dalton’ in a Road House sequel. In January 2025, we’ll see Gyllenhaal on screen in Guy Ritchie’s latest film for Lionsgate, In The Grey, and back on stage in a new Broadway production of Othello alongside Denzel Washington. The Shakespeare revival will be directed by Kenny Leon and is set to open in Spring 2025.

Working with some of Hollywood’s greatest filmmakers across independent and studio fare, Gyllenhaal has starred in Ang Lee’s classic Brokeback Mountain, for which he received an Academy Award nomination and won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor; Bong Joon Ho’s Okja; Jean Marc Vallée’s Demolition; Michael Bay’s acclaimed action thriller Ambulance; Antoine Fuqua’s boxing drama Southpaw and more recently The Guilty, which Gyllenhaal also produced. Baltasar Kormákur’s Everest; Dennis Villeneuve’s highly acclaimed films Prisoners and Enemy; David Ayer’s End of Watch; Richard Kelly’s cult hit Donnie Darko; Duncan Jones’ Source Code; David Fincher’s Zodiac; Sam Mendes’ Jarhead; Joe Johnston’s October Sky; Ed Zwick’s Love and Other Drugs, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination; Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals, for which he earned a BAFTA nomination; and Velvet Buzzsaw, for which he re-teamed with Nightcrawler writer/director Dan Gilroy. For his role in Nightcrawler, Gyllenhaal received BAFTA, Golden Globe, SAG, Critics’ Choice, and Independent Spirit Award nominations. He was also recognized with Best Actor citations from numerous critics’ groups. Notably, Gyllenhaal also won an Independent Spirit Award as a producer on the film for Best First Feature. In 2019, Gyllenhaal made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut as ‘Mysterio’ in Jon Watt’s Spider-Man: Far From Home alongside Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Samuel L. Jackson. The film is Sony’s second highest-grossing movie at the worldwide box office to date.

For the stage, Gyllenhaal made his Broadway debut with Nick Payne’s Constellations and his musical theatre debut in the Encores! production of Little Shop of Horrors. His New York stage debut in 2012 in If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet, for the Roundabout Theatre Company which earned him nominations from the Drama League and Lucille Lortel Awards. In his first stage performance since 2002, Gyllenhaal starred in Kenneth Lonergan’s revival of This is Our Youth on London’s West End, for which he won an Evening Standard Theater Award for Outstanding Newcomer. Gyllenhaal also starred on Broadway in the highly acclaimed revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece Sunday in the Park with George opposite Tony winner Annaleigh Ashford. The musical re-opened the historic Hudson Theatre and played a sold-out 10-week engagement, becoming one of the most successful productions in Sondheim’s esteemed history. Most recently, Gyllenhaal starred in Sea Wall/A Life alongside Tom Sturridge in a tender pair of monologues that originally opened at The Public. The show went on to a hugely successful, limited run at the Hudson Theater on Broadway and for his performance, Gyllenhaal received a Tony nomination in the Best Performance by a Lead Actor in a Play category.

Gyllenhaal founded Nine Stories in 2015, a fully capitalized production company dedicated to working with visionary storytellers in all fields. Recently it was announced that Amazon MGM Studios has closed a three-year first-look film deal with Nine Stories. Under the deal, Amazon MGM Studios will have a first look on narrative features Nine Stories intends to produce for both theatrical and streaming. Nine Stories produced Antoine Fuqua’s The Guilty, starring Gyllenhaal, which was Netflix’s #1 film for over three weeks. Previously, Nine Stories produced the highly acclaimed Wildlife, Paul Dano’s directorial debut starring Carey Mulligan; David Gordon Green’s feature film Stronger, starring Gyllenhaal as Boston Marathon bombing survivor ‘Jeff Bauman;’ Antonio Campos’ The Devil All The Time for Netflix; Reinaldo Marcus Green’s Joe Bell; Tate Taylor’s Breaking News in Yuba County; and executive produced Hondros, a documentary on war photographer Chris Hondros that won the coveted Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival. For the stage, Nine Stories produced We’re Only Alive for a Short Amount of Time by playwright David Cale. Through Nine Stories, Gyllenhaal served as a producer on Sea Wall/A Life and Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play, which received a total of 12 Tony nominations; both productions received Tony nominations for Best Play in the same year.

Molly Osborne (Desdemona) has emerged as one of England’s most promising up-and-coming young actresses who has been called “remarkable” and “a true rising star” of the London stage by the Evening Standard. A native of Wivenhoe in Essex, Osborne moved to London at the age of 18 to study musical theater at the renowned Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Shortly after graduating in 2018, she made her West End debut as ‘Tzeitel’ in Trevor Nunn’s Olivier Award-winning revival of Fiddler on the Roof.  In 2021, she returned to the Menier Chocolate Factory as ‘Chana’ in Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel’s Indecent. The production, directed by Tony Award winner Rebecca Taichman, reopened that venerated theater after the COVID lockdown.  Most recently, she starred opposite Jamie Parker in the world premiere musical adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Curious Cast of Benjamin Button directed by Jethro Compton at the Southwark Playhouse in London. Variety heralded her performance as ‘Elowen’ as “hauntingly sung, wonderfully grounded, and quick witted.” Earlier this year, she appeared in the adaptation of Sara Ryan’s memoir Laughing Boy, which had its world premiere at the Jermyn Street Theatre. In addition to her extensive theater credits, Osborne can also be seen on television in PBS’s “Call The Midwife” and in the upcoming Amazon Prime series “Anansi Boys” created by Neil Gaiman.

Kenny Leon (Director) is a Tony Award-winning director who also has been honored with the Actors Fund Medal of Honor, an Obie Award, an NAACP Image Award, and the George Abbott Lifetime Achievement for American Theater. Leon is the 2024 recipient of the Jason Robards Award for Excellence in Theater. He was most recently represented on Broadway with the hit revival of Ossie Davis’ Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch starring Leslie Odom, Jr. Leon recently directed critically acclaimed productions of Ohio State Murders by Adrienne Kennedy and Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog on Broadway. Currently on Broadway, he is represented with revival of Samm-Art Williams’ Home at the Todd Haimes Theatre. He directed the Tony Award-winning Broadway premiere of Charles Fuller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, A Soldier’s Play, starring Blair Underwood and David Alan Grier at Roundabout Theatre Company for which he also received a Tony Award nomination for Best Director. He also directed the acclaimed productions of Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing at the Delacorte/Shakespeare in the Park. His Broadway credits include Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch; Topdog/Underdog; Ohio State Murders; A Soldier’s Play; American Son; Children of a Lesser God; Holler If Ya Hear Me; A Raisin in the Sun; The Mountaintop; Stick Fly; August Wilson’s Fences, Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf. Off-Broadway: The Underlying Chris, Everybody’s Ruby, Emergence-See! (The Public); Smart People (Second Stage). Leon’s television work includes “Hairspray Live!” and “The Wiz Live!” on NBC. He also directed Lifetime’s Emmy-nominated “Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia;” and currently on Netflix, he has directed episodes of “Colin in Black & White” and “Amend: The Fight for America.” In 2018, he released his memoir Take You Wherever You Go. He is the recipient of the 2016 Mr. Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing and the 2010 Award for Excellence in Directing from the Drama League. Leon serves on the board of New York’s Public Theater and is Artistic Director Emeritus of Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company in Atlanta. He is currently serving as Senior Resident Director at Roundabout Theatre Company.

Prior to co-founding True Colors Theatre Company, he served 11 years as Artistic Director of the Alliance Theatre, where he produced the premieres of Disney’s Elaborate Lives: The Legend of Aida, Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky, and Alfred Uhry’s The Last Night of Ballyhoo. Other directorial credits include Alicia Keys’ World Tour, Toni Morrison’s opera Margaret Garner, the world premiere of Flashdance: The Musical, and the complete August Wilson Century Cycle at the Kennedy Center. Leon is a sought-after motivational speaker who has done acting and theater workshops at universities and corporate offices around the country, South Africa and Ireland.  He has directed in the UK, and extensively throughout the US, including Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, Boston’s Huntington Theatre, Baltimore’s Center Stage, Los Angeles’ Center Theatre Group and New York’s Public Theatre. Leon is a graduate of Clark Atlanta University and is an honorary Ph.D. recipient of Clark Atlanta and Roosevelt Universities and has served as the Denzel Washington Chair at Fordham University.

Brian Anthony Moreland (Producer) received a Tony Award nomination Best Revival of a Play for August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson. Other works: The Wiz, Macbeth, American Buffalo, The Lifespan of a Fact. He has been named to Ebony’s Power 100 list and Variety’s Top 10 Watch. Moreland is a creative lead producer with a passion for universal stories that bring new narratives to the stage. He devotes his spare time to TCG, Theatre Development Fund, is a trustee for BC/EFA and the American Academy Dramatic Arts and serves on the Board of Governors for The Broadway League.

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