Atlanta’s Tony-winner Kenny Leon reflects on the legacy of James Earl Jones

Kenny Leon never worked with James Earl Jones.

But he quickly acknowledges the connective tissue the legendary actor provided to propel him to a Tony Award and 17 Broadway productions.

In 1988, Leon sat in the Richard Rodgers Theatre to watch Jones’ stunning Tony-winning performance as the thunderous Troy Maxson, in the Pulitzer-Prize-winning play, “Fences.”

It was Leon’s first time seeing a Broadway production.

Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com

Some 34 years later, in 2022, Leon directed “Ohio State Murders,” the first play performed at the newly renamed James Earl Jones Theatre on Broadway.

In between, Leon and James enjoyed a long relationship, built on mutual admiration and the love of the stage.

James Earl Jones, the noted actor, who shined on stage and the big screen, died Monday. He was 93.

Leon called it “a glorious, bittersweet day.”

“This is not a day of sadness,” Leon said. “This is a great day to remind all of us that James Earl paved the way for many of us who continue to do the work.”

A native of Arkabutla, Mississippi, Jones had nearly 200 television and movie credits, according to IMDB.

Credit: AP Photo/Jeffrey Richards Associates, Joan Marcus

Few of them, aside from “Coming 2 America,” and the 1985 television movie “The Atlanta Child Murders,” had Atlanta ties.

“Every city has its reality, and this story should awaken a realistic concern about children in a big city,” Jones said in a 1985 interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, speaking about the television drama in which he played a police official. “I hope it does. Children are so vulnerable and precious.”

Although he is best known for his film work, which includes “The Lion King,” “The Great White Hope,” “Claudine,” “Field of Dreams,” and the “Star Wars” franchise, Jones got his start on the stage.

His father, Robert Earl Jones, abandoned the family around the time Jones was born, to pursue prize fighting and acting dreams. He appeared in more than 20 movies in the 1920s and ‘30s, including a few directed by Oscar Micheaux.

Jones made his Broadway debut in 1958′s “Sunrise at Campobello,” and according to “Playbill” had 27 roles on Broadway, with his final performance coming in 2015 in “The Gin Game.”

He would win his two Tony Awards for “The Great White Hope” in 1969, and “Fences” in 1987.

Credit: Evan Agostini / AP

He also won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts, and the Kennedy Center Honors. He was also given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement.

“You can’t think of an artist that has served America more,” Leon said. “It seems like a small act, but it’s a huge action. It’s something we can look up and see, that’s tangible.”

In 1988, Leon had just arrived in New York from Tallahassee. He had graduated from Clark Atlanta University with a degree in political science and was still exploring a career on the stage.

He got tickets to “Fences,” the third of August Wilson’s seminal cycle of 10 plays covering African American history in the 20th century.

Jones starred in the play, alongside Mary Alice, who played his wife, Rose.

“It was incredible,” Leon remembers. “It was the first time that I knew the theater was more than entertainment. It was the first time I looked at my culture on a raised stage.”

Leon said he was struck by the cultural presentation, which included the rhythms of how Jones and Alice spoke to each other, which reminded him of people in Tallahassee.

“I knew what it’s like to see your mother and father work hard,” Leon said. “I didn’t know that I was going into theater but that performance encouraged me to know that theater was political, and could deliver social change.”

A year later, in 1989, Leon was named associate director of Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre Company. In 1990, he was named artistic director, one of only a handful of African Americans to lead a notable nonprofit theater company.

In 2002, Leon opened Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company , dedicated to telling universal stories with Black voice.

Leon directed the Broadway revival of “Fences,” starring Viola Davis and Denzel Washington, in 2010, with Washington reprising Jones’ role of Troy. It won a Tony for Best Revival of a Play. Two years later, Leon won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for “A Raisin in the Sun.”

As Leon made his way through Broadway, he would often visit Jones backstage during performances. Jones would always make Leon, 25 years his younger, sign his Playbills.

Credit: Tina Fineberg

This is why Leon jumped at the opportunity to open the James Earl Jones Theatre in 2022.

While Leon never worked with Jones on stage, he said the bookend events of seeing him in “Fences” and opening the Jones Theatre “led to my successful career.”

“He was always inspiring. Always breaking down knowledge,” Leon said of Jones. “He was a good man.”

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