It's only Broadway for Megan Mullally, who will return to the stage this fall in an updated version of Terrence McNally's It's Only a Play.
The Emmy Award-winning Will & Grace star joins previously announced Tony Award winners Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, who broke box office records in 2001 as stars of the Broadway musical megahit The Producers.
McNally's newly revised showbusiness comedy, which premiered Off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theater Club in 1986, will mark the Tony-winning gay playwright's 21st Broadway production.
The cast will also include Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham, Tony winner Stockard Channing, and Micah Stock. Additional casting will be announced soon.
"In It's Only a Play, it's opening night of Peter Austin's (Matthew Broderick) new play as he anxiously awaits to see if his show is a hit," read press notes on the production. "With his career on the line, he shares his big First Night with his best friend, a television star (Nathan Lane), his fledgling producer (Megan Mullally), his erratic leading lady (Stockard Channing), his wunderkind director, an infamous drama critic, and a wide-eyed coat check attendant on his first night in Manhattan. It's alternately raucous, ridiculous and tender -- reminding audiences why there's no business like show business. Thank God!"
Directed by out Tony winner Jack O'Brien (Hairspray, The Nance), the play will open October 7 for a limited 17-week engagement at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre with Tom Kirdahy, McNally's husband, as a lead producer. Kirdahy is currently producing McNally's gay-themed drama Mothers and Sons, which is nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play.
Mullally's previous Broadway credits include Young Frankenstein, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and Grease. She recently starred in the Off-Broadway play Annapurna opposite her husband, Parks and Recreation star Nick Offerman.
Mullally, who famously came out as bisexual in a 1999 cover story for The Advocate, later clarified her remarks to The Advocate in 2009, saying, "I know the gay community wants me to be bisexual, but unfortunately I'm not as bisexual as people have wanted me to be. I am married to a man, we've been together 10 years, and I've never had sex with a woman. But I do still think everybody has an ability to love that isn't limited by gender."
Broderick and Lane last shared the stage in the 2005 Broadway revival of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple. They appeared in the movie musical adaptation of The Producers the same year. Lane came out publicly as gay in a 1999 interview with The Advocate.
It's gonna be quite a season for McNally this fall since this news came after Off-Broadway's Second Stage Theatre announced a revival of his Lips Together, Teeth Apart for its upcoming 36th season.
The acclaimed comedy is about two straight married couples spending Fourth of July weekend at a Fire Island beach house that one character has inherited after her brother's death from AIDS.
"As their season in the sun unfolds, the two couples do their best to enjoy themselves despite their prejudices and insecurities," read press notes about the play. "The grill is fired up, the drinks are cold and the pool is open but no one is going in."
Lips Together, Teeth Apart is scheduled to begin previews October 7 at Second Stage, which previously presented McNally's gay-themed Some Men. Directed by Peter DuBois, the revival will mark the play's first New York production in 23 years.
"Lips Together... is one of Terrence's finest plays -- I've wanted to mount a production for several years and I'm so pleased that both Terrence and Peter will be back at our theatre," said Second Stage founding artistic director Carole Rothman in a statement.
The play was first produced Off-Broadway in 1991 with cast members Christine Baranski, Swoosie Kurtz, Nathan Lane, and Anthony Heald. A planned 2010 Broadway revival was famously cancelled after star Megan Mullally quit the production.
McNally is currently represented on Broadway with the Tony-nominated gay-themed drama Mothers and Sons.
