Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal just ramped up publicity for the 2024-2025 season of Broadway after being announced as leads for the Shakespeare original play, Othello.

According to The New York Times, this would be the 22nd Broadway performance of Othello since 1751.

The play will be directed by Kenny Leon, a Tony Award winner for his 2014 project, A Raisin in the Sun. He has also directed Washington’s Tony Award-winning performance in a 2010 project, Fences.

Othello would be an adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies of the same title, where the 69-year-old actor would play the leading character, driven mad due to jealousy.

Meanwhile, Gyllenhaal would play the villain, Iago’s character, the one who manipulates Othello into questioning his wife’s loyalties.

The role of Othello’s wife, Desdemona, has not yet been cast.

Denzel Washington holds an enormously successful acting career holding two Academy Awards, for Glory and Training Day.

He has also headlined five different Broadway plays, with his most recent work being a 2018 revival of The Iceman Cometh.