Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made her Broadway debut this weekend. She also made history as the first member of the nation's highest court to grace its storied stage, according to the production that invited her.
Jackson appeared in a one-night-only walk-on role on Saturday night in the Tony-nominated romantic comedy musical & Juliet, a modern take on Shakespeare's tragedy that imagines what would have happened if the female protagonist survived and took control of her own life.
The show announced Jackson's performance several days in advance, writing on Instagram that the justice would also participate in a talkback with the audience afterward. Jackson also spoke about it on Saturday's episode of NPR's Wait Wait … Don't Tell Me, recorded in New York City hours before she took the stage.
"They have invited me to do a special walk-on role that I'm told they wrote for me," she said. "So I'm very excited."
Later, & Juliet posted behind-the-scenes footage on social media showing Jackson rehearsing songs and choreography, getting her hair and makeup done and trying on her monochromatic teal costume featuring baggy jeans, a tunic and a corset.
It also captures the moment when a cast member brings Jackson onstage, at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, introducing her by name as the night's "very special guest." Jackson ran onto the stage — and later took her final bows — to roars of applause.
"I did it!" Jackson exclaims at the end of the video. "I made it to Broadway."
Justice served. pic.twitter.com/DeeYRvxQum
— & Juliet Broadway (@AndJulietBway) December 16, 2024
Jackson has long been open about her "unabashed love of theater," as she called it in her 2024 memoir Lovely One. She illustrated it further by singing a few lines from The Wiz and Schoolhouse Rock during an interview on her book tour this fall.
In the memoir, Jackson describes writing in her application to Harvard University — where she earned her undergraduate and law degrees — that "I wished to attend Harvard as I believed it might help me 'to fulfill my fantasy of becoming the first Black, female Supreme Court justice to appear on a Broadway stage.' "
Jackson went on to pursue theater during her time at Harvard, including performing in a production of Little Shop of Horrors (alongside frequent Wait Wait panelist Mo Rocca). She also took a drama class in which she was once a scene partner with future Academy Award-winner Matt Damon, as she recalled in the Wait Wait interview.
"We did the scene, and it was some play that didn't have a whole lot of action like Waiting For Godot or something, where you're just sitting on the stage," she said. "But at the end, the professor said, 'Oh, Ketanji, you were so good. Matt, we'll talk.' "
Jackson became the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court after she was nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate in 2022.
It took just two more years to make the rest of her fantasy a reality.
"I got a call, and someone said, 'We heard that this was your lifelong dream,' " Jackson told NPR. "And it is — to be a Broadway performer and a justice."
Jackson isn't the only Supreme Court justice with a passion for the performing arts.
The late justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, ideological opposites, famously bonded over their love for opera — a friendship that inspired a comic opera in 2015. One year later, at age 83, Ginsburg made her onstage debut (with a speaking role) in a one-night-only cameo as the Duchess of Krakenthorp in a Washington National Opera performance of The Daughter of the Regiment.
Copyright 2024 NPR
