Every day is opening night.

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FIRST OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF A
NEW BROADWAY PRODUCTION

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE

F. MURRAY ABRAHAM, MATTHEW BRODERICK,
STOCKARD CHANNING, NATHAN LANE,
MEGAN MULLALLY & MICAH STOCK
SET FOR BROADWAY REVIVAL OF
TERRENCE MCNALLY'S
” I T ' S   O N L Y   A    P L A Y “

DIRECTED BY TONY AWARD® WINNER
JACK O'BRIEN

BEGINS PERFORMANCES FALL, 2014
OPENING NIGHT SET FOR OCTOBER 9, 2014

New York, NY – Producers Tom Kirdahy, Roy Furman, and Ken Davenport announced today that Academy Award® winner F. Murray Abraham, Tony Award® winner Matthew Broderick, Tony Award® winner Stockard Channing, Tony Award® winner Nathan Lane, Emmy Award® winner Megan Mullally, and Micah Stock will star on Broadway in a newly revised version of Terrence McNally's uproarious comedy, It's Only a Play, which first premiered in New York in 1986 at the Manhattan Theatre Club.  Tony Award® winner Jack O’Brien will direct.  Additional casting will be announced shortly.  The production will play a strictly limited 17-week engagement at Broadway's Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre (236 West 45th Street) beginning this fall, 2014, with an opening night set for Thursday, October 9. 

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. 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!

Mr. McNally—a four-time Tony® Award winning playwright—recently celebrated the premiere of his 20th Broadway production, Mothers and Sons, which marks his 50th year on Broadway.  Mothers and Sons is nominated for Best Play at the 2014 Tony® Awards, and currently plays at the Golden Theatre. 

Tickets for It's Only a Play will be available to American Express® Card Members through an exclusive pre-sale beginning today, Wednesday, June 4, through Wednesday, June 11, by visiting Telecharge.com.   Tickets will go on sale to the general public beginning Thursday, June 12.  For groups of 20 or more, call 855-329-2932.  For more info, visit www.ItsOnlyAPlay.com.

BIOGRAPHIES_______________________________________________________

F. MURRAY ABRAHAM. Award winning actor F. Murray Abraham has also established a reputation for his powerful and sensitive work in the genre of spoken word with music. He has performed under the batons of some of the greatest conductors in America and Europe and made his New York Philharmonic debut in May 2005 as the Narrator in Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat. He returned in June 2006 to narrate Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, and again in December 2007 for a presentation of “Inside the Music” with Gerard McBurney featuring Shostakovich Symphony No. 4. In June 2007, Mr. Abraham appeared in the Detroit Symphony’s performances of L’Histoire du soldat. He has appeared with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas, and performed Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex at the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and James Levine. In May 2008, he performed the Genesis Suite with the Seattle Symphony and Gerard Schwartz.  In October, 2012, Mr. Abraham returned to his native Pittsburgh, reading letters from Mozart to his father in the Pittsburgh Symphony’s dramatic presentation of Mozart’s Requiem, led by Manfred Honeck. This year, he will make his solo singing debut with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra at the Prague Proms in Steven Mercurio’s A Grateful Tail. As part of this program, Mr. Abraham will sing “The Last Will and Testament of Silverdene Emblem O’Neill,” Eugene O’Neill’s moving tribute to his beloved dog. Mr. Abraham has appeared in more than 80 films, including Amadeus, for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor, as well as Golden Globe and L.A. Film Critics Awards. His other films include Lina Wertmüller’s House of Geraniums (with Sophia Loren); The Bridge of San Luis Rey (with Robert De Niro); Where Love Begins (with Virna Lisi); The Name of the Rose and Gus van Zant’s Finding Forrester, both with Sean Connery; Brian De Palma’s Scarface and Bonfire of the Vanities; The Ritz; and Star Trek: Insurrection, The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson) and Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen). Mr. Abraham’s television appearances have included Zanuck Productions’ “Dead Lawyers,” “Noah’s Ark,” “Dead Man’s Walk,” “Largo Desolato,” “Season of Giants,” “Excellent Cadavers,” “Quiet Flows the Don,” “The Betrothed,” “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” and “Marco Polo,” “The Good Wife” and “Louie” (Louis C.K.). Recently, he joined the cast of the hit series “Homeland.” A veteran of the theater stage, F. Murray Abraham has appeared in more than 90 plays, among them Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (for which he received an Obie Award), Trumbo, Standup Shakespeare, the Italian tour of Notturno pirandelliano (with Michele Placido), Susan Stroman’s A Christmas Carol, the musical Triumph of Love (alongside Betty Buckley), A Month in the Country, the title role in Cyrano de Bergerac, The Seagull, Oedipus Rex, Creon, Angels in America (both Millennium Approaches and Perestroika), The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, Waiting for Godot, The Caretaker, The Ritz, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Duck Variations, A Life in the Theatre, and Paper Doll, and recently Three Penny Opera. He made his LA debut in Ray Bradbury’s The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and his NY debut as a Macy’s Santa Claus, soon thereafter to Broadway in The Man in the Glass Booth, directed by Harold Pinter. In 2005, Mr. Abraham penned A Midsummer Night's Dream: Actors on Shakespeare, a commentary chronicling his experience playing the character of Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream on stage. In January of 2013, Mr. Abraham was honored with The Moscow Art Theatre Award, also received by the distinguished director Peter Brook. Mr. Abraham lives in New York and is a proud grandfather.

MATTHEW BRODERICK. A two-time Tony award-winning stage actor and instantly recognizable film presence, Matthew Broderick was most recently seen on screen in the 2011 actor packed film, New Year’s Eve. He was also recently seen alongside Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy and Casey Affleck in Tower Heist, and in Margaret with Matt Damon and Mark Ruffalo. In the spring of 2008, he was also on the big screen in Helen Hunt’s directorial debut Then She Found Me. Broderick recently finished the award-winning Broadway run of Nice Work If You Can Get It.  Previously, he starred in the blockbuster Broadway production of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. He also starred in the hit off-Broadway play, The Foreigner, at the Roundabout Theatre. In 2005, he starred in the feature film version of The Producers, reprising the Tony-nominated performance he gave on Broadway in this smash hit musical. Broderick starred in the critically acclaimed You Can Count on Me opposite Laura Linney.  He also earned considerable acclaim starring opposite Reese Witherspoon in the critically lauded and Independent Spirit Award winning political satire Election, directed by Alexander Payne. A New York native, he made his professional stage debut opposite his father, James Broderick, at age 17 in the production of On Valentine’s Day.  His performance in Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy, won him the Outer Critic’s Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor. Broderick won his first Tony Award for Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs, and starred in the play’s sequel, Biloxi Blues.  He won his second Tony for his role as J. Pierrepont Finch, in the Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Broderick has also starred in such blockbuster movies as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Glory, War Games, and Disney’s The Lion King, as the adult voice of Simba.  Additional credits include Bee Movie, Godzilla, Addicted to Love, The Cable Guy, Inspector Gadget, Deck the Halls, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, Max Dugan Returns, Project X, Family Business, The Freshman, The Night We Never Met, The Last Shot and The Stepford Wives. In addition to his stage, screen and Broadway credits, he has also appeared on “Modern Family,” “30 Rock,” the Showtime film “Master Harold… and the Boys” and received an Emmy nomination for the TNT production of David Mamet’s “A Life in the Theater” in which he starred opposite Jack Lemmon. Currently Broderick is working on some films slated to be released in 2014 including Dirty Weekend and The American Side. Broderick resides in New York with his wife Sarah Jessica Parker and their three children.

STOCKARD CHANNING’s work on the stage includes, New York: Other Desert Cities (Tony Nominated), Six Degrees of Separation (Tony and Drama Desk nominations, Obie and Drama League awards), Four Baboons Adoring the Sun (Tony nom.), House of Blue Leaves (Tony, DD noms.),The Little Foxes, Hapgood (DD nom.), Pal Joey (Tony and DD noms.), Joe Egg (Tony Award, DD nom.), The Lion in Winter (Tony nom.), Woman in Mind (DD award), The Rink, and The Golden Age. London: Awake and Sing! (Almeida), Six Degrees of Separation (Royal Court and Comedy; Olivier Award nom.). Dublin: The Importance of Being Earnest (Gaity). Film includes Six Degrees of Separation (Oscar, Golden Globe noms.), The Business of Strangers (London Critics Circle Award, AFI nom.), Where the Heart Is, Practical Magic, The First Wives Club, Smoke (SAG nom.), Grease (People’s Choice Award), The Fortune (Golden Globe nom.). Her television achievements includes one Golden Globe nom., 13 Emmy noms., and 7 SAG noms., for “Out of Practice,” “The Truth About Jane,” “Baby Dance,” “Unexpected Family,” “Road to Avonlea,” “Perfect Witness,” and “Echoes in the Darkness.”; two Emmy and SAG Award wins in 2002 for “The West Wing” and “The Matthew Shepard Story”; “Jack” (Daytime Emmy); “On Tidy Endings” (ACE Award). Currently, she appears on “The Good Wife”.

NATHAN LANE most recently appeared on Broadway in The Nance, for which he received Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations, and won the Outer Critics Circle Award and The Drama League Distinguished Performance Award.  Lane also appeared at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago as Hickey in the Robert Falls Production of The Iceman Cometh. Lane made his Broadway debut opposite George C. Scott in Present Laughter (Drama Desk nomination), followed by Merlin, The Wind in the Willows, Some Americans Abroad, On Borrowed Time, Guys and Dolls (Tony nomination, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards), Love! Valour! Compassion! (Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Awards), The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Producers (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Awards, and the Olivier Award), The Frogs, The Odd Couple, Butley, November, Waiting for Godot (Outer Critics Circle nomination), The Addams Family (Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations). In 1992 Lane received an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance through his various roles in theatre.  He also appeared in a number of off Broadway productions including: The Common Pursuit, The Film Society, The Lisbon Traviata (Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Awards, Outer Critics Circle nomination), Lips Together, Teeth Apart, Love! Valour! Compassion! (Obie Award), Bad Habits, Dedication or the Stuff of Dreams, Mizlansky/Zilinsky or Schmucks, Trumbo, Measure for Measure (St. Claire Bayfield Award), A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor, She Stoops to Conquer, In a Pig's Valise, Love, Do Re Mi. As for television, Lane has most recently had a recurring role on “The Good Wife” and “Modern Family” (Five Primetime Emmy Nominations, Two Daytime Emmy Awards, and a People’s Choice Award). Lane has also appeared in over 35 films including: The Birdcage (Golden Globe Nomination, Screen Actors Guild and American Comedy Awards), Ironweed, Frankie and Johnny, Mousehunt, Jeffrey, The Lion King, Stuart Little, Nicholas Nickleby (National Board of Review Ensemble Acting Award), The Producers (Golden Globe nomination), Swing Vote, Mirror, Mirror, The English Teacher. In 2006, Lane received a start on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 2008, he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Lane was born and raised in New Jersey and eventually got his career rolling in New York City.  Lane currently still resides in New York City.

MEGAN MULLALLY is best known for her role as ‘Karen Walker’ on “Will & Grace,” for which she was awarded two Emmys, four Screen Actors Guild awards and five Golden Globe nominations.  She stars as ‘Chief’ on the double Emmy Award-winning comedy “Children’s Hospital,” and played ‘Lydia’ on the critically acclaimed Starz series “Party Down.” Other television credits include “Parks and Recreation,” “Bob's Burgers,” “Web Therapy,” “30 Rock,” “Trophy Wife,” “Happy Endings,” “Up All Night,” “Seinfeld” and “Frasier.”  Recent film work includes Ernest & Celestine, Smashed, Kings of Summer, Trouble Dolls, Date and Switch, Somebody Up There Likes Me, GBF and the upcoming Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day.  She has starred on Broadway in Grease, How to Succeed In Business… and Young Frankenstein, and appeared Off-Broadway this spring with her husband Nick Offerman in Annapurna at The New Group's Acorn theatre.  Megan's band, Nancy And Beth, has been touring the states and will soon release their eponymous first album.  The band can be found on Facebook at Nancy and Beth and on Twitter @nancyandbeth

MICAH STOCK. Broadway Debut!  Off-Broadway: World Premiere of Terrence McNally's And Away We Go (The Pearl), The Capables (GYM at Judson). Regional: Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival, Long Wharf Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival. Film: King Kelly (Official Selction: SXSW, Puchon Film Festivals). TV: “Pan Am”, “Law & Order: SVU”, and a recurring role on NBC's “Deception”. Education: BFA, SUNY Purchase Conservatory.

TERRENCE McNALLY was awarded the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. He is the winner of Tony Awards for his plays Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class and his books for the musicals Ragtime and Kiss of the Spiderwoman. In 2010 the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts presented Terrence McNally's Nights at the Opera, a three-play festival of his work. Last season Golden Age opened at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage One at City Center and the Pearl Theatre premiered his new play And Away We Go at their new home on 42nd. St in early fall. His newest play Mothers and Sons premiered on Broadway this Spring. It is his 20th Broadway production. Other plays include Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, The Lisbon Traviata, Corpus Christi, The Ritz, Some Men, A Perfect Ganesh, It's Only a Play, Bad Habits, The Stendhal Syndrome, Dedication or the Stuff of Dreams, Deuce and Unusual Acts of Devotion at the La Jolla Playhouse and Philadelphia Theatre Company. He has written the books for the musicals The Full Monty, A Man of No Importance and The Visit. He also wrote the libretto for the opera Dead Man Walking which had its premiere at San Francisco Opera. He won the Emmy Award for “Andre's Mother.”

JACK O'BRIEN is acclaimed for his numerous credits on Broadway, off-Broadway, and for regional theatre, and for his direction of a variety of genres, from Shakespeare to opera to musical comedy. Farrar, Straus & Giroux published his memoir Jack be Nimble. O’Brien’s direction will be seen in Shakespeare in the Park’s upcoming production of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. He directed the Broadway productions of Macbeth, The Nance, Dead Accounts and Catch Me If You Can, as well as the West End productions Love Never Dies and Hairspray, which won the 2008 Olivier Award for Best Musical after being nominated for an unprecedented 11 awards, including Best Director. He also directed the Broadway production of Impressionism. He was the recipient of the 2007 Tony Award® for Best Direction of a Play for his work on Tom Stoppard’s trilogy The Coast of Utopia, which won a total of 7 Tony Awards®, including Best Play. In addition to garnering consecutive Tony Awards® for his direction of the acclaimed Broadway productions of Henry IV (2004) and Hairspray (2003), O’Brien received the 2002 “Mr. Abbott” Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation, one of the country’s most prestigious directorial honors. He also received the 2001 Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award nomination for his direction of Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love. Notably, he was also nominated in 2005 for Best Direction of a Musical for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and 2001 for Best Direction of a Musical for The Full Monty. O’Brien was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2008. Additionally, he was honored with the John Houseman Award from the Acting Company in 2005; the Julia Hansen Award for Excellence in Directing from the Drama League in 2001, and received accolades in 1994 with his induction into the prestigious College of Fellows of the American Theatre and an honorary doctorate from the University of San Diego. He holds a BA, an MA, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Michigan. He was the recipient of ArtServe Michigan’s 2008 International Achievement Award. O’Brien’s other New York credits include Il Trittico for the Metropolitan Opera, Two Shakespearean Actors (Tony® nomination for Best Direction), and Hapgood (Lucille Lortel Award for Direction), both at Lincoln Center. His 1993 adaptation/revival of Damn Yankees earned a Tony Award® nomination for Best Musical Revival, going on to a long Broadway run and tour. Other New York stagings include More to Love at the O’Neill; Lincoln Center's The Little Foxes and Pride's Crossing; Manhattan Theater Club's Labor Day; and City Centre Encores! production of St. Louis Woman. O'Brien was the Artistic Director of The Old Globe Theatre from 1981-2007 and captivated San Diego audiences with over 60 provocative productions, including world premieres, musicals, adaptations and classical works. Recent productions include the world premieres of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, by David Yazbek and Jeffrey Lane, which opened to rave reviews on Broadway in March of 2005; Stephen Metcalfe’s Loves & Hours; and Nora Ephron’s Imaginary Friends, with Swoosie Kurtz and Cherry Jones; Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, with Paxton Whitehead and Harry Groener, on the Globe’s outdoor stage; the world-premiere of The Full Monty, the Terrence McNally/David Yazbek musical, which went to enjoy successful runs on Broadway, London and national tour; Chekhov’s The Seagull (a new version by Tom Stoppard); The Magic Fire by Globe Associate Artist Lillian Garrett-Groag and Brendan Behan's The Hostage. He is responsible for originally creating and now supervising the Globe’s popular annual musical, Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, which has not only continued over the past 11 years at the Globe, but has also been successfully transferred to Broadway, and has expanded to other national markets. In other notable projects for the Globe, O'Brien directed Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2, starring John Goodman, the world premiere of Stephen Sondheim & George Furth's The Doctor is Out, and Hamlet, starring Campbell Scott, which was cited by Time Magazine as 1990's “finest classical revival.” His productions of Uncle Vanya and The Snow Ball were also commended by Time Magazine as “Critics' Voices” selections in 1991. The world premieres of A.R. Gurney's The Cocktail Hour (1988), which went on to a celebrated run at the Promenade Theatre as well as engagements in Los Angeles and the Kennedy Center; and Stephen Metcalfe's Emily (1986) were similarly cited. His thirst for a new look at American classics has brought audiences revivals of Philip Barry's Holiday, George Kelly's The Torch Bearers and The Show Off, and Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, which was televised live from the stage of the Old Globe Theatre as the opening of the 1983 season of PBS's “American Playhouse” series. In 1976, O'Brien staged (for Houston Grand Opera) George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, which ten years later, was revived as a tour by a consortium of 14 American regional opera houses as well as some in Europe. Originally in its Broadway run, the production garnered a Tony Award for Most Innovative Revival in 1977, and a Tony Award nomination for O'Brien for Best Direction. Other opera and musical theatre credits include Peter Maxwell Davies' The Lighthouse for San Diego Opera, Mozart's The Magic Flute and Abduction from the Seraglio for the San Francisco Opera, Aida and Cosi Fan Tutti for Houston Grand Opera, Kurt Weill's Street Scene for New York City Opera, and Puccini's Tosca for Santa Fe Opera. His television credits include “An Enemy of the People,” “I Never Sang For My Father”, “All My Sons,” and “Painting Churches” for “American Playhouse.” His production of Street Scene was televised on “Live from Lincoln Center,” and his Broadway revival of Most Happy Fella and staging of The Good Doctor, were produced for PBS. O'Brien has staged major productions at such theatres as the Ahmanson in Los Angeles, American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, Berkeley Repertory, Hartford Stage Company, Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo, N.Y., the Huntington Theatre in Boston, and the St. Louis Repertory Theatre. Film (as an actor): Sex and the City: 2.

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