Emmy-winning Will & Grace star Debra Messing will return to Broadway in the New York premiere of Noah Haidle's play, Birthday Candles. The Roundabout Theatre Company production, directed by Vivienne Benesch, is scheduled for spring 2020.
Through the baking of a cake over a 100-year period, Birthday Candles chronicles the life of Ernestine Ashworth (Messing). Seen at the Detroit Public Theatre last year where it had its world premiere, the new play asks: What makes a lifetime...into a life?
Birthday Candles is scheduled to play a limited engagement at the American Airlines Theatre April 2–June 21, 2020, with an April 21 opening.
Back onscreen as Grace in NBC's hit show Will & Grace (which returned in 2017 after an 11-year hiatus and for which Messing is an Emmy winner and nine-time Golden Globe nominee), Messing has also appeared in The Mysteries of Laura, Smash, and The Starter Wife. She was last seen on Broadway in John Patrick Shanley's Outside Mullingar.
Further casting and additional creative team members for the Broadway production of Birthday Candles will be announced.
Haidle's plays include Mr. Marmalade, seen at Roundabout in 2005, as well as Smokefall, seen Off-Broadway in 2014, and The Homemaker. His most recent play, Earthside, will premiere in February 2020 in Germany.
