Jurnee Smollett will join the company of The Whoopi Monologues at Lincoln Center Theater beginning Tuesday, August 4, succeeding Kerry Washington, who plays her final performance in the production on Sunday, August 2.
The production reimagines Whoopi Goldberg’s groundbreaking 1984 Broadway solo show as an ensemble piece, with five actresses bringing Goldberg’s iconic characters to life. Washington portrayed Surfer Girl, while the current cast also includes Dominique Fishback as Blonde Girl, Kecia Lewis as Lurleen, Kara Young as Fontaine and Danielle Pinnock as Jamaican Lady. The production is written by Goldberg and directed by Whitney White.
Goldberg’s original one-woman show debuted on Broadway in 1984, earning her Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards before an HBO adaptation won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. Long before her Oscar-winning performance in Ghost, her beloved turn in Sister Act and her decades-long tenure on The View, the production was the moment that introduced Goldberg as a singular theatrical force.
The show marks Smollett’s Off Broadway debut. Best known for HBO’s Lovecraft Country and most recently seen opposite Taron Egerton in Apple TV+’s Smoke, she previously appeared on stage opposite Cicely Tyson and Vanessa Williams in a 2014 staging of The Trip to Bountiful in Los Angeles.
The Whoopi Monologues began performances July 7 and officially opened July 13 at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, running through August 30.