Common joins Broadway cast of 'Between Riverside and Crazy'
He makes his Broadway debut with the production.
Grammy, Emmy, and Oscar-winning artist Common completes the cast of Between Riverside and Crazy on Broadway, joining the original cast members from the play's Off-Broadway premiere. Stephen Adly Guirgis's play runs at the Hayes Theater from November 30 to February 12, with an opening night on December 19.
Common will play Junior, a role originated off Broadway by Tony nominee Ron Cephas Jones. He makes his Broadway debut with the production. Common previously acted in films like American Gangster, Rex, New Year's Eve, Street Kings, and Suicide Squad.
He is best known as a musician, with 14 rap albums. He won an Oscar and a Grammy for co-writing the song "Glory," from the film Selma, with John Legend, and he's received two original Grammys for the songs "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)" and "Southside" featuring Kanye West.
He won an Emmy Award for writing the song "Letter To The Free" for the documentary 13th. He is one award away from EGOT status, denoting those who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award in their careers.
The remainder of the Between Riverside and Crazy cast includes the previously announced Stephen McKinley Henderson, Rosal Colón, Victor Almanzar, Elizabeth Canavan, Liza Colón-Zayas, and Michael Rispoli.
In Between Riverside and Crazy, Walter "Pops" Washington is an ex-cop fighting a lawsuit with his former employer while also fighting eviction notices from his landlord, who wants him out of his rent-controlled Upper West Side apartment. The place has become a haven for Junior, Pops's paroled son, and many other down-and-out people, all of whom are trying together to survive and find redemption.
Second Stage Theater, which produced the play in 2015 with the mostly same cast, also mounts Between Riverside and Crazy's Broadway premiere. Guirgis won a Pulitzer Prize that year for the play.
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Photo credit: Common. (Photo by Brian Bowen Smith)
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