By Brooks Welch
According to CNBC, As of March 2nd, 2022, The Shubert Organization’s Cort Theatre on Broadway is renamed The James Earl Jones Theater after the 91 year old, EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) winner, legendary thespian James Earl Jones.
On Wednesday, The Shubert Organization issued a press release announcing their decision to name the 110 year old theatre after James Earl Jones, with remarks from the Shubert CEO and James Earl Jones.
“The Shubert Organization is so incredibly honored to put James—an icon in the theatre community, the Black community, and the American community—forever in Broadway’s lights,” said Robert E. Wankel, Shubert CEO and board chair. “That James deserves to have his name immortalized on Broadway is without question.”
Jones shared his gratitude for the honor, “For me, standing in this very building 64 years ago at the start of my Broadway career, it would have been inconceivable that my name would be on the building today,” said the legendary actor. “Let my journey from then to now be an inspiration for all aspiring actors.”
The press release reported, “Mr. Jones’s Broadway career began in 1957, and in 1958 Mr. Jones played his first role at the Cort Theatre in Sunrise at Campobello. Over the following six-and-a-half decades Mr. Jones rose to star in countless stage and screen productions (including twenty-one Broadway shows), becoming one of a small number of lifetime “EGOT” (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) winners. Mr. Jones’s Tony awards include Best Actor in a Play for The Great White Hope (1969) and Fences (1987), as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. He has additionally won seven Drama Desk Awards and has been awarded the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honor.”
According to New York Post, this honor is a full circle moment as The Cort is where Jones made his debut in 1958’s “Sunrise at the Campobello.”
The outlet reported that Jones joins a rare group of actors with Broadway theaters taking their names: Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Ethel Barrymore and Edwin Booth. Most theaters named after producers and financial investors.