Broadway lets actors show off their range with no second takes and immediate crowd reactions. That’s why it’s no surprise that so many TV and film veterans are returning to the stage, or stepping onto it for the first time.
Patina Miller, who just wrapped up the series Power Book III: Raising Kanan, and Denée Benton, who returns to screen in the fourth season of The Gilded Age on November 1, are currently playing opposite one another at an affluent boarding school in Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Daniel Kaluuya, who has returned to the screen in an emotionally riveting role in Misty Green, is getting Broadway-adjacent in Grass, a new play by Pulitzer Prize winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, starting February 2027, at New York’s Park Avenue Armory.
Here are five other TV and film actors who will grace Broadway stages this upcoming season and may even earn a Tony nod next year.
Tichina Arnold — & Juliet
You know her as Pam from Martin, Rochelle from Everybody Hates Chris and most recently, Tina from The Neighborhood. Now Tichina Arnold is bringing that unmistakable voice and comic timing to & Juliet as Angélique. While she appeared in the musical film version of Little Shop of Horrors and has sung on screen numerous times, this role marks her Broadway debut, starting November 3.
Sherri Shepherd — Aladdin
From The View to her own talk show and an emotional tour-de-force performance in Lifetime’s docu-drama, Angel in the Rubble, Sherri Shepherd has never needed much help commanding a room. Now she has a whole theater. She’s currently playing in Broadway’s Aladdin, where she brings her comedy chops to a character whose personality demands its own spotlight.
Luke James — Wanted
If you know Luke James as Trig on The Chi or as Johnny Gill in The New Edition Story, you already know he brings presence and has got the moves. In Wanted, which began Broadway previews on October 15, he plays Elijah in the musical about real-life twin sisters Mary and Martha Clarke, who became notorious Texas outlaws around 1893.
Tituss Burgess — It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt fans know Tituss Burgess can turn practically any sentence into a performance. Now the actor behind would-be actor Titus Andromedon — who did a short stint in a production of CATS — is lending that glorious voice and theatrical flair to It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, playing Clarence and other characters, opening on November 18.
Jasmine Cephas Jones — Warriors
A Broadway veteran of Hamilton, where she played Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds, Jasmine Cephas Jones is now known to many from the HBO series Lanterns. She now leads another Lin-Manuel Miranda project, Warriors, as Swan. This time, the journey runs through New York’s streets, with a gang fighting to make it home.