{"id":296794,"date":"2026-07-15T17:44:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T17:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/296794\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T17:44:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T17:44:24","slug":"jurnee-smollett-will-join-the-whoopi-monologues-off-broadway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/296794\/","title":{"rendered":"Jurnee Smollett Will Join The Whoopi Monologues Off-Broadway"},"content":{"rendered":"

Off-Broadway’s\u00a0The Whoopi Monologues<\/a>, fresh off a July 13 opening night at Lincoln Center Theater<\/a>, will get a new star next month, with Jurnee Smollett (Lovecraft Country,\u00a0Smoke)\u00a0set to join the company beginning August 4. Smollett will succeed original star Kerry Washington<\/a>, who takes her final bow in the production August 2.<\/p>\n

The work sees five actors recreating solo monologues written and originally performed by the legendary Whoopi Goldberg<\/a>, in her 1983 Broadway solo show Whoopi<\/a> Goldberg and its 2004 follow-up Whoopi. Along with Washington, the cast features\u00a0Kara Young<\/a>, Kecia Lewis<\/a>, Dominique Fishback, and Danielle Pinnock.\u00a0Performances run at LCT’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater through August 30, with Whitney White<\/a> (Liberation<\/a>) at the helm.<\/p>\n

See what critics had to say of the production here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Understudies Kai Heath, Denise Manning, and Pavar Snipe round out the company.<\/p>\n

Smollett will make her Off-Broadway debut with the production, but has previously appeared on stage in\u00a0The Trip to Bountiful<\/a> opposite Cicely Tyson<\/a> and Vanessa Williams<\/a> in a 2014 staging in Los Angeles. Her screen credits include\u00a0The Order,\u00a0The Burial, and\u00a0We Grown Now.<\/p>\n

The production features scenic design by Studio Bent’s Adam Rigg and Anton Volovsek<\/a>, costume design by Qween Jean<\/a>, lighting design by Cha See<\/a>, sound design by Fan Zhang, video design by Hana S. Kim<\/a>, and hair and wig design by Nikiya Mathis<\/a>. Tiffany N. Robinson<\/a> serves as stage manager.<\/p>\n

Visit LCT.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Off-Broadway’s\u00a0The Whoopi Monologues, fresh off a July 13 opening night at Lincoln Center Theater, will get a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-296794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}