If you are a famous person who was within a 20-mile radius of the Barrymore Theatre on Sunday night and was not at the premiere of Othello on Broadway? You’ve got an angry phone call to make today. Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal star in Kenny Leon’s production of Shakespeare’s tragedy, which hosted a house full of A-listers for its opening night. The guest list included filmmakers, musicians, stars of stage and screen, and … Joe Biden?
Yes, former president Joe Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill, left their Rehoboth beach house for a date night. This is, frankly, the best Biden has looked in years. This is the kind of smile you have when you know you weren’t suckered into paying $900 to see a play. That was actually sort of the vibe of the whole evening. This is the hottest ticket in town, and none of these people had to pay for it. You’d be smiling too.
Look, they even caught Anna Wintour with the hint of a grin. That might be because she’s got Colman Domingo as her date for the evening, and who wouldn’t love that?
Here’s Jennifer Lopez with her kid, Emme, who definitely asked to be her plus-one last night.
That’s just scraping the surface of everyone who was there for opening night. HBO’s stable of actresses over 40 were represented by Cynthia Nixon, Nicole Ari Parker, and Christine Baranski. Jeremy O. Harris and Peter Dinklage were there to fulfill the “New York Guys You Will See If You Live Here” quota. Denzel’s famous friends, including Spike Lee, Angela Bassett, and Samuel L. Jackson, showed up to support him. Does Jake Gyllenhaal have famous friends? The jury is kind of out on that one, but maybe he’s close with Gayle King, who was also there last night. Other A-listers in attendance included Martha Stewart, Jamie Lee Curtis, newly minted Broadway legend Nicole Scherzinger, Questlove, and Katie Holmes. The award for most surprising attendee has to go to Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kandi Burruss, who produced the show. Who knew!
Wow, that’s a lot of names, and I didn’t even get to all of them. Tony Shaloub was there! Blair Underwood was wearing a giant hat! Sorry, I’ll stop for real now. All I’m saying is that New York hasn’t seen such a star-studded event since the re-re-opening of Planet Hollywood! (Liev Schreiber, this town’s top socialite, attended both.)
