iHeartRadio Broadway sat down with the cast and director Kenny Leon for the Broadway debut of Ohio State Murders by Adrienne Kennedy. The cast includes Emmy, Grammy, and Six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald, Tony Award nominee Bryce Pinkham (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder), Lizan Mitchell (On Sugarland, Cullud Wattah), Mister Fitzgerald, and Abigail Stephenson. Ohio State Murders will be the first show to play at the newly renamed James Earl Jones Theatre with previews beginning Friday, November 11, 2022 and open on Thursday, December 8, 2022 for a strictly limited engagement.
“One of the finest living American playwrights...” (The New York Times), Obie Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, and a member of the Theater Hall of Fame, Adrienne Kennedy will make her Broadway debut with this production at age 91. Earlier this year, Kennedy was awarded the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy of Arts and Letters, which is awarded to those who have achieved eminence in an entire body of work. Only four other dramatists have been awarded the Gold Medal: Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller. Ms. Kennedy has been contributing to American theater for over six decades, and is best known for her plays such as Funnyhouse of a Negro (Obie Award), June and Jean in Concert (Obie Award), and Sleep Deprivation Chamber which she co-authored with her son Adam Kennedy (Obie Award) as well as numerous other plays and books.
The creative team for Ohio State Murders includes set design by Beowulf Boritt, lighting design by Allen Lee Hughes, costume design by Dede Ayite, sound design by Justin Ellington and projections design by Jeff Sugg.
When writer Suzanne Alexander (Audra McDonald) returns to her alma mater as a guest speaker, in which she explores the violence in her works, a dark mystery unravels. Adrienne Kennedy’s Ohio State Murders is an intriguing and unusual suspense play, as well as a social pertinent look at the destructiveness of racism in our society.
Ohio State Murders is presented by Jeffrey Richards, Lincoln Center Theater, Rebecca Gold, Jayne Baron Sherman, Hunter Arnold, Marc David Levine, Kevin Ryan/Lisa Alexander Taylor, Brad Blume, Robert Boyett, Irene Gandy, Iris Smith, Willette and Manny Klausner, Kayla Greenspan, Gary and Marlene Cohen, Ken and Rande Greiner/Jamie deRoy, Jacob Soroken Porter, Concord Theatricals, John Gore Organization, The Nederlander Organization and The Shubert Organization.