That’s he that was Othello. Here I am.

Three acclaimed actors who have recently starred as Shakespeare’s Othello—André Holland (at Shakespeare’s Globe), Chukwudi Iwuji (at the Public Theater) and John Douglas Thompson (at Theatre for a New Audience)—discuss the challenges they faced in playing the role and read key speeches from the play. Their conversation will be moderated by James Shapiro and Ayanna Thompson, Shakespeare Scholars in Residence at the Public Theater. The evening will open with a musical selection from Duke Ellington’s 1957 tribute to Shakespeare, Such Sweet Thunder.

This event is part of Columbia University’s Such Sweet Thunder: Ellington Plays Shakespeare—Love and Power in Adaptation, a year-long series of public events across the arts inspired by the resonances and dissonances between Shakespeare and Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s Such Sweet Thunder.