Theater News

Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick Will Reunite on Broadway in Terrence McNally's It's Only a Play

Jack O’Brien will helm the revival this fall.

Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick will star in the Broadway premiere of Terrence McNally's It's Only a Play this fall.
Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick will star in the Broadway premiere of Terrence McNally's It's Only a Play this fall.
(© Tristan Fuge)

Tony Award winners Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, who famously caught lightning in a bottle when they starred opposite each other in The Producers, will reunite on Broadway in a revised revival of Terrence McNally's It's Only a Play, the New York Times reports. Jack O'Brien will direct the production, which is set to open in September at a theater still to be announced.

Broderick will take on the role of Peter Austin, a playwright suffering through the opening-night festivities of his Broadway debut, with Lane as James Wicker, his insecure and egotistical friend who turned down the leading role for a part on a now-canceled sitcom. According to the Times, McNally has substantially rewritten and updated the play, which features topical humor and theatrical in-jokes.

It's Only a Play played an off-Broadway run at Manhattan Theatre Club in 1986, and this new production will serve as its Broadway premiere. After their triumph in The Producers, Lane and Broderick appeared onstage together in a 2005 revival of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple. In early 2015, Lane is set to star in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh at Brooklyn Academy of Music.