The hit Broadway comedy “It’s Only a Play” has a new star, a new home and a new closing date.
The show’s producers announced on Thursday that the Tony Award-winning actor Martin Short (“Little Me”) will take over the role played by Nathan Lane when Mr. Lane departs the production on Jan. 4, 2015. Mr. Short’s first performance will be on Jan. 7. His last Broadway appearance was in the 2006 show “Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me.”
The producers also announced that “It’s Only a Play” has extended its run at the Schoenfeld Theater on West 45th Street, where it has set a new box-office record. Originally scheduled through Jan. 4, the play will instead run through Jan. 18.
But in an unusual move for a Broadway play, the show will then transfer next door to another Broadway house, the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater, starting on Jan. 23. (The long-running musical “Once” closes there on Jan 4.) Performances are set for the Jacobs through March 29, 2015.
“It’s Only a Play” has been one of the top-performing plays on Broadway since opening in October, in part because of the popularity of Mr. Lane and his fellow cast mate, Matthew Broderick, who also appeared together in “The Producers.”
Mr. Lane had earlier announced he would appear in a production of “The Iceman Cometh” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the spring.
And the Schoenfeld won’t sit empty for long; Helen Mirren will take the throne there as Queen Elizabeth in “The Audience” starting Feb. 17.