Start spreadin’ the news: Jennifer Hudson is coming to Broadway! She’ll be lending her powerful vocals to the role of lounge singer and longtime mistress Shug Avery in the Broadway production of The Color Purple, ESSENCE.com has learned exclusively.
Hudson will make her grand return to acting with this starring role in one of Broadway’s biggest hits, which is expected to open in 2015.
The stage rendition will be a reworking of the London production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Alice Walker. Directed and designed by John Doyle’s Menier Chocolate Factory, it will feature music and lyrics from legendary singer-songwriter Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray. Producers are in talks with British actress Cynthia Erivo to reprise her London role as Miss Celie, a source tells ESSENCE.com.
Oprah Winfrey and her theatrical business partner Scott Sanders (After Midnight) will co-produce the revival. The pair also produced the 2005 run.
With this new role, Hudson is one step closer to becoming an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) winner. The singer recently hinted at her plans. “I got a dog and named it Oscar, and then I won my Oscar. And then I got a dog and named it Grammy, and then I won my Grammy,” Hudson told PEOPLE in October.
“So I think I should get some dogs and name them Emmy and Tony – and it’ll give me good luck, and I’ll win … [They’re] like my good luck charms.”
Could a Tony acceptance speech be in her future? We sure hope so. Congratulations, J. Hud!