Carroll & Jones to Headline D.C. Golden Pond
James Earl Jones and Diahann Carroll are set to headline On Golden Pond at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The Ernest Thompson play, directed by Leonard Foglia, will run from September 28 through October 17, with an official opening on October 2.
The production will mark the beginning of the 2004-2005 theater season at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It will also be a long-awaited reunion for Jones and Carroll, who last worked together 30 years ago when they starred in the film Claudine. Both actors earned Golden Globe nominations, and Carroll received an Academy Award nomination, for their performances in the film.
On Golden Pond tells the story of retired New England professor Norman Thayer Jones and his wife Ethel Carroll, who decide to spend one final summer at their family's lakeside cottage in Maine. They receive an unexpected visit from their estranged daughter, Chelsea, who leaves behind her fiancé's troubled teenage son while en route to a European honeymoon. When Chelsea returns to discover Norman playing the father she never had, years of bitter memories and resentment rise to the surface.
The original 1978 production of On Golden Pond starred Tom Aldredge and Frances Sternhagen and ran at New York's Hudson Guild Theatre before it transferred to the New Apollo Theatre. The 1981 film version starred Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, Jane Fonda and Dabney Coleman and won three Academy Awards. Thompson won the Golden Globe and Writers Guild of America awards for his screenplay.
Jones is probably best known as the voices of Darth Vader in the Star Wars films and Mufasa in Disney's The Lion King. His many theatrical credits include Tony-Award-winning performances in The Great White Hope and Fences, as well as "MASTER HAROLD"…and the boys, The Iceman Cometh and Othello. Jones went on to perform in the film version of The Great White Hope, for which he received an Academy Award nomination, as well as the acclaimed films Dr. Strangelove and Field of Dreams. He has also earned two Emmy Awards and eight Emmy Award nominations for his guest appearance on the series Everwood.
Carroll won a Tony Award for her performance in the original Broadway production of No Strings. Her other stage credits include House of Flowers, Agnes of God and Sunset Boulevard. She also was the first black woman to star in her own television series, Julia, for which she earned one of her four Emmy nominations. Her film work includes Carmen Jones and Porgy and Bess.
Additional casting for the nine-member company will be announced in the coming weeks.
