Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will make a one-night, guest appearance in the Broadway musical & Juliet, fulfilling what apparently was a lifelong dream to act on the Great White Way.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, whom President Joe Biden nominated in 2022, is set to make her special appearance during the Saturday, December 14 evening performance. She will also participate in a post-show audience discussion.
A new ensemble role has been created specifically for Jackson, according to a Deadline report.
& Juliet is a jukebox musical that is loosely inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The production opened on Broadway at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre in 2022.
In her recently released memoir — the promotion of which appears to be the reason behind her Broadway appearance — Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote about her desire to one day act on Broadway while serving on the Supreme Court.
“I, a Miami girl from a modest background with an unabashed love of theater, dreamed of one day ascending to the highest court in the land—and I had said so in one of my supplemental application essays [to Harvard],” she wrote.
“I expressed that I wished to attend Harvard as I believed it might help me ‘to fulfill my fantasy of becoming the first Black [sic], female Supreme Court justice to appear on a Broadway stage.”
This wouldn’t be the first time that a sitting Supreme Court justice has acted on stage.
The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an avid opera buff who was a regular at the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center. In 2016, Ginsburg made a guest appearance in WNO’s production of Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment, playing the non-singing role of the Duchess of Krakenthorp.
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