Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson makes Broadway debut in '& Juliet'
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson achieved a lifelong dream Saturday night, making an appearance in a Broadway show.
Jackson performed in "& Juliet," a musical comedy exploring what would have happened if Juliet continued after Romeo. Her cameo was a one-night-only, walk-on role, and she stayed to talk with audience members after the show, according to a press release.
In her recent memoir "Lovely One," Jackson said it was a dream to be the first, Black female justice to take the Broadway stage.
"I just also think it's very important to remind people that justices are human beings, that we have dreams, and that we are public servants," Jackson told "CBS Mornings" in an interview before the performance. The segment aired Monday after her debut. "I guess this moment reinforces for me that anything is possible."
Ketanji Brown Jackson tells CBS she once took drama class with Matt Damon
Jackson has already made history by becoming the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. She was nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed in 2022, a liberal addition to a court with a conservative majority.
Her memoir, released in September, chronicles her upbringing in Miami, her education at Harvard and some of her first moments as a member of the high court.
Jackson told CBS she grew up as a theater kid before getting into speech and debate in high school. She even took drama class alongside Matt Damon in college, she said in the interview.
Her aspirations to combine her two loves by appearing on the big stage and serving on the SCOTUS bench were even part of her application to Harvard.
“I, a Miami girl from a modest background with an unabashed love of theater, dreamed of one day ascending to the highest court in the land—and I had said so in one of my supplemental application essays," reads an excerpt from her memoir, provided in the press release. "I expressed that 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.'"
Paste BN reached out to a representative for Jackson for this story.
Contributing: Maureen Groppe, Susan Page
Kinsey Crowley is a trending news reporter at Paste BN. Reach her at kcrowley@gannett.com, and follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley.