James Earl Jones, who died Monday at the age of 93, was Broadway royalty. So much so that a theater was named in his honor. In Connecticut, his stage career also loomed large, as three of his best-known performances originated on stages in the state.
The first was “Sunrise at Campobello,” Dore Schary’s biographical drama about President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s struggle with polio. The play had its world premiere at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven during Christmas week of 1957. Jones had just a small role in the show, but it marked his Broadway debut when it opened in early 1958. “Sunrise at Campobello” was produced by Lawrence Langner and Armina Marshall, the married couple who founded the Westport Country Playhouse.
James Earl Jones, acclaimed actor and voice of Darth Vader, dies at 93
Jones’ next landmark role in New Haven was as Troy Maxon in August Wilson’s “Fences.” The drama, about a Pittsburgh sanitation worker who was once close to becoming a professional baseball player, was developed at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford and had its world premiere in 1985 at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven.
The O’Neill Center and Yale Rep had the same artistic director, Lloyd Richards, who directed “Fences” and would shepherd several of Wilson’s other plays to Broadway. “Fences” opened on Broadway in 1987. The play would go on to win Tony awards for Jones, Wilson and Richards. It also won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The O’Neill Center presented Jones with its Monte Cristo Award in 2011.
“Fences” was not Jones’ first show at Yale Rep. He appeared there in productions of Shakespeare’s “Timon of Athens” and Athol Fugard’s “A Lesson From Aloes” in 1980 and Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler” in 1981. When in New Haven, Jones liked to stay at the Duncan Hotel on Chapel Street (now called The Graduate) and could often be found late at night in the book store across the street.
Jones, whose movie career ranged from “Dr. Strangelove” in 1964 in his film debut to voicing Mufasa in “The Lion King” and Darth Vader in the “Star Wars” films, had his final big Connecticut stage appearance when he starred as Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in the one-man play “Thurgood” by George Stevens, Jr.
The show premiered in 2006 at the Westport Country Playhouse. Just last month, the playhouse hosted a tag sale in which one of the items for sale was a suit Jones wore in that production. When “Thurgood” moved to Broadway, it was without Jones. Laurence Fishburne assumed the role of Marshall.
Jones continued to act on Broadway into his 80s, in revivals of the comedy “You Can’t Take It With You” in 2015 and the relationship play “The Gin Game” in 2016. It was in 2022 that Broadway’s Cort Theatre was renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre.
