Norm Lewis to Star in National Tour of A Soldier's Play

Attention! Tony nominee Norm Lewis will star in the national touring production of the Tony-winning revival of Charles Fuller's A Soldier's Play. Lewis will play Captain Richard Davenport, a role that garnered Blair Underwood a Tony nomination. Tony winner Kenny Leon directs the production, which will begin performances in December. Tour dates and additional casting is to be announced.

Lewis is a Tony nominee for his performance in The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess. His other Broadway credits include The Phantom of the Opera, Little Mermaid, Once on This Island, Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, Chicago and more.

"It’s an honor to direct Charles Fuller’s masterwork for audiences around the country," said Leon in a statement. "Anyone who has seen Norm on the stage or screen knows that he is a remarkably powerful presence, a true force-of-nature and I can’t wait to see what will happen when we have that power at the center of this play."

Fuller's Pulitze Prizer-winning A Soldier’s Play is set at a Black army base in 1944 segregated Louisiana. Sergeant Waters has been murdered, and Army captain Davenport arrives at the base to investigate the crime, which might or might not involve the local KKK or even the many Black soldiers who openly desplayed their hated for the sergeant.

The play first bowed off-Broadway at the Negro Ensemble Company in 1981 in a production that included Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson. A Soldier's Play made its long-awaited Broadway debut at the American Airlines Theatre in January 2020 and received seven Tony nominations, taking home the trophy for Best Revival of a Play and Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play for David Alan Grier.

Grier is set to star in a limited series adaptation of the play titled A Soldier’s Story.