Forest Whitaker to make Broadway debut this spring

NEW YORK (AP) -- Forest Whitaker will make his Broadway debut this spring as a drunken, small time hustler in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's "Hughie."

The Academy Award and Golden Globe winner will play Erie, who tells his tale to a sympathetic soul in a rundown hotel lobby. He misses Hughie, the fleabag hotel's desk clerk who has just died. Michael Grandage will direct.

Whitaker's movie roles include Lee Daniels' "The Butler," "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" and his Oscar-winning turn as Idi Amin in 2006's "The Last King of Scotland."

Other actors who have played Erie on Broadway include Jason Robards in 1964, Ben Gazzara in 1975 and Al Pacino in 1996. The play is set in 1928 and runs about an hour.

Dates and theater will be announced later.

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