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Supreme Court Justice (and theater fanatic) Ketanji Brown Jackson made her Broadway debut over the weekend. As she joined & Juliet on Saturday, Jackson made history by becoming the first member of the Supreme Court to perform on Broadway.
The Justice appeared in a one-night-only role during Saturday night’s showing of the musical, which takes on a “what if” scenario on Shakespeare’s classic Romeo and Juliet — what if Juliet didn’t kill herself, while using hit songs produced by Max Martin. On Monday, the Broadway production shared behind-the-scenes video of Jackson preparing for the role with the cast, and also clips of her performance.
“This has been a dream of mine,” she says in a TikTok clip. “I think that it means that anything is possible.”
Jackson has been a longtime fan of theater, and wrote about it in her memoir, Lovely One, earlier this year. “I wished to attend Harvard as I believed it might help me ‘to fulfill my fantasy of becoming the first Black, female Supreme Court Justice to appear on a Broadway stage,’” she wrote in the book, per NPR.
Jackson has made history in more ways than one: In 2022, Jackson also became the first Black woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court after being nominated by President Joe Biden.
“I got a call, and someone said, ‘We heard that this was your lifelong dream,’” Jackson told NPR. “And it is — to be a Broadway performer and a Justice.”
Back in September, she sat down for an interview with Gayle King, in which she revealed that she was once a scene partner with Matt Damon while in school.
