Oscar winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph returns to Philly theater for one night only, to be directed by James Ijames

Oscar and Golden Globe winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph is coming home for Thanksgiving.

Two days before the holiday, the Mount Airy native will star in a special one-night-only reading of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune by Terrence McNally. It will be directed by another Philadelphian, the Pulitzer-winning playwright and theater director, James Ijames. Randolph will be joined by her My Name is Dolomite costar Robert D. DoQui and the proceeds from the benefit reading will help fund the Philadelphia Theatre Company’s education and community engagement programs.

“I’ll never turn down getting to come back home during the holidays [and] also then work,” said Randolph, a Temple theater alum, who is justifiably thrilled. But there is a minor gripe.

“The only thing that would make it better,” she said, “is going to an Eagles game.”

On Sunday, the Philadelphia Eagles, will be facing the Rams in Los Angeles, Randolph’s current home base. While The Holdovers star will miss out on a reunion with her home team on home turf, her holiday homecoming is reuniting her with Ijames, who she has known from her Temple years.

“I knew him as a formidable actor, and I had a talent crush on him and was like, ‘This man is beyond!’ So when he was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m writing this play,’ I was like, ‘What? You do that too?’” The play, Temple University’s School of Theater, Film, and Media Arts’ associate dean Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon said, was The Lamentable Tragedie of Tobias L. Jason, written by Ijames and directed by Williams-Witherspoon. It was performed in Randall Theater in May 2006.

“Da’Vine played a professor and female colleague to the title character. In that production, she did a remarkable imitation of Micheal Jackson — even balancing herself on her toes,” Williams-Witherspoon said.

“That was, technically, my first real play ever,” said Randolph. “And I would say, one of his first real delves into, like, ‘OK, I’m really gonna own this and tap into this writing stuff.’”

But that’s not the only Philly reunion that pushed her to say yes to Frankie and Johnny.

After Randolph’s 2024 Oscar win for best supporting actress, the 38-year-old actor decided to go back to her roots and take on theater projects. Her team found her an agent in New York, who also turned out to be a Temple classmate. “So I hop on this call, and my classmate pops up on the Zoom,” she said. “I’m like, ‘Alice Whitley, what are you doing?’ ... So that was it. I was like, ‘Oh, we’re doing this. This is kismet.’”

McNally’s play, which premiered in New York City in 1987, is set in a one-room Manhattan apartment and stars Johnny, a cook, who meets Frankie, a waitress. While Johnny is convinced that he has met the love of his life, Frankie isn’t so certain. As the night progresses — at some point, Johnny calls a radio station and requests Claude Debussy’s “Clair de lune,” thus the name of the play — a new relationship slowly and tentatively blooms into existence.

Ijames, whose Fat Ham was a reworking of Hamlet and Media/Medea was a reimagination of the Greek tragedy with hat tips to Real Housewives of Atlanta and Sunset Boulevard, will not be making changes to McNally’s text.

“What spoke out to me [about the play] was the authenticity, the rawness, the fact that this is timeless. I just loved it and was taken aback at how real it was. The language felt so relatable. Frankie feels very real. I can relate to her in many ways,” said Randolph, who had first read the play in 2008 at Temple.

“For me, it’s the relatability of the piece. It’s the timelessness … [McNally’s] way with words is absolutely amazing. And it fits all eras, all genres,” said DoQui, a certified New Orleans Saints fan per Randolph. “The play is a reminder to be fearless. You know, life is short and you miss opportunities if you don’t go for them. You only make the shots you shoot, so take the shot.”

DoQui performed in the city years ago, when he was in high school but isn’t getting any tips on handling the Philly audiences from his costar. “No, no. We should surprise him,” she said while offering to take him out to eat.

She also wants to “do all things silly on Thanksgiving.”

“I want to go to the parade, but it’s probably [going to be] really, really cold. Also if there was a covert way for me to do it. Like, on the sleigh with Santa at the very end, jumping out of the bag,” Randolph said.

What she will definitely do is shop and eat.

“Gotta go to King of Prussia. I have to, even though I can’t do the full blown Black Friday shopping like I used to do when I was younger. I’d literally shop till I pass out. And I have to have a lot food.”

Obviously, she will be watching Sunday’s Eagles game with her family.

“I don’t really care what [my friends in LA] think about [my Eagles fandom]. I almost cursed just now. But you know I wish I could be there for that game in LA with [the Rams fans] because they’re not gonna win. Of course, the Eagles are gonna win.”

One-night benefit reading of ‘Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.’ Nov. 26, 7 p.m., Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 South Broad Street, Phila., philadelphiatheatrecompany.org/frankie-and-johnny/