Sarah Jessica Parker is returning to Broadway! The former Sex and the City star will be joined by her husband, Matthew Broderick, in the first-ever New York revival of Neil Simon’s marriage comedy Plaza Suite. And ET has your exclusive first look at the actors as three different pairs of couples visiting the famed Manhattan hotel.
An uproarious and piercing look at love and marriage, Plaza Suite tells the story of three couples that happen to be staying in suite 719 as they navigate unexpected revelations in their own relationships. In Act I, “Visitor From Mamaroneck,” Parker and Broderick play Karen and Sam Nash, a couple trying to reignite the magic between them. They are followed by former flames, Jesse Kiplinger and Muriel Tate, in Act II, “Visitor from Hollywood.” The play concludes with the real-life couple playing Roy and Norma Hubley, parents of the bride-to-be, in Act III, “Visitor from Forest Hills.”
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Act I: “Visitor From Mamaroneck” - Parker as Karen Nash and Broderick as Sam Nash
While speaking with ET, Parker revealed that the married couple’s return to Broadway came out in a surprising way. They were helping out their friend and fellow actor, John Benjamin Hickey, with a special event when they started pouring over plays they could read.
“When we re-read Plaza Suite, we were just reminded how freaking funny it was. How funny it is but also how moving it is,” Parker recalled. “How much it is about relationships and marriage and milestones and betrayal. How much it is about marriages at different parts, at different points of years spent together and the absurdity of all of it.”
Act II: “Visitor From Hollywood” - Parker as Muriel Tate and Broderick as Jesse Kiplinger
The upcoming production directed by Hickey marks the first time Parker and Broderick have performed together on the Broadway stage since the 1995 revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Joining as replacements in the spring of 1996, the couple appeared onstage together until the production closed in July of that same year.
The play also marks Parker’s return to Broadway 22 years after starring in Once Upon a Mattress. Meanwhile, Broderick, a two-time Tony Award winner, last appeared in the 2016 production of Sylvia, which coincidentally starred Parker when the play first premiered Off-Broadway in 1995.
When asked if she still gets nervous appearing on stage, Parker said yes. “You don't even want to talk to me about it,” she gushed. “Of course I do, because I still care.”
Act III: “Visitor From Forest Hills” - Parker as Norma Hubley and Broderick as Roy Hubley
Despite the nerves, Parker is clearly excited to return to Broadway with her husband. “I feel I’ve waited a lifetime,” Parker wrote in a lengthy Instagram post announcing the production, noting that she’ll get to work with “an actor whom I get to love onstage and off.”
“It was my great good fortune that my very first Broadway play was written by Neil Simon. He also wrote my first film. I owe him a career,” Broderick previously said of his longtime collaboration with Simon, who died last year. He appeared in the late playwright’s Brighton Beach Memoirs, for which he won his first Tony Award, Biloxi Blues and The Odd Couple.
“The theater has lost a brilliantly funny, unthinkably wonderful writer and even after all this time I feel I have lost a mentor, a father figure, a deep influence in my life and work,” he continued.
Plaza Suite, which is set for a 17-week engagement, begins previews on Mar. 13 and officially opens on Apr. 13 at the Hudson Theatre.
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Tue, 02/25/2020 - 09:00