Jesse Williams, pictured right, is set to take over the coveted role previously won by disgraced actor Jussie Smollett in a Tony award-winning Broadway play.
Williams, 37, will make his Broadway debut in next year’s revival of Richard Greenberg’s Tony Award-winning 2002 play Take Me Out, Deadline.com reports.
Williams, who plays Dr. Jackson Avery on Grey’s Anatomy and has appeared in Lee Daniels’ The Butler and The Cabin in the Woods, will play the lead role of Darren Lemming, a mixed-race professional baseball player at the peak of his career who decides to come out of the closet.
Smollett’s legal troubles cost him the lead role in the Broadway play. The play debuted on Broadway on February 27, 2003, and ran for 355 performances. It won the 2003 Tony Award for Best Play.
Smollett, who is biracial and openly homosexual, was set to play the lead role, but he was dropped from the play after police arrested him for staging a hate crime hoax in Chicago.
Take Me Out explores homophobia, racism, classism and toxic masculinity in men’s sports.
Smollett, 33, was in New York City to audition for the role, 12 hours before he staged a hate crime with two Nigerian-American brothers in January.
Greenberg’s play sparked speculation that it was based on Major League baseball star Derek Jeter. But the rumors were unfounded.
Photos by Tiffany Rose/WireImage, Prince Williams/Wireimage
