Daniel Kaluuya to make his New York stage debut in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's Grass
The Oscar winner leads the world premiere at Park Avenue Armory from 19 February to 28 March 2027. His casting was announced on 20 October 2026 as the Armory added to its 20th-anniversary season.
Daniel Kaluuya will make his New York stage debut in Grass, a new play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, at Park Avenue Armory. Playbill and TheaterMania reported the casting on 20 October 2026, as the Armory announced more productions for its 2027 season.
The play
Previews begin on 19 February 2027, with an official opening on 26 February and a final performance on 28 March. Kaluuya, the Oscar winner known for Get Out, plays a son who sets out with his mother on a road trip through the American South as they try to piece together their family tree. TheaterMania says the journey imagines meetings with figures such as Walt Whitman and Martin Luther King Jr. The rest of the cast has not yet been announced.
The Armory announced the world premiere on 16 September 2026, without a lead. Grass is co-commissioned with National Black Theatre, and Jacobs-Jenkins, a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner, is an artist in residence at the Armory. Sarah Benson directs and Mimi Lien designs the set, reuniting the writer with the director and designer of his Obie-winning 2014 production of An Octoroon.
The rest of the 2027 season
The Armory marks its 20th anniversary in 2027. In September 2027 it will give the North American premiere of Phelim McDermott's new staging of Einstein on the Beach, the four-hour opera by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson. In December 2027 it presents the North American premiere of Guernica Guernica by the Belgian theatre collective FC Bergman, which takes Picasso's painting as its starting point to look at images of war. Stef Aerts, Jo Agemans, Thomas Verstraeten and Marie Vinck lead a cast of more than 80.
What it means for acts
Grass was announced in September with no cast, and a single screen name has now given it a public face four months before previews. Managers weighing a stage move for a screen or stand-up client can note the shape of it: a new play at a non-profit venue, a commissioning partner sharing the project and a fixed run of just over five weeks. A limited run with a set end date is far easier to fit around tour and filming schedules than an open-ended Broadway engagement.
