Jean Smart Begins Rehearsals for Call Me Izzy, Her First Broadway Role in 25 Years | People.com

By Dave Quinn | Published on May 5, 2025 11:34AM EDT

*NOTE: Chelsea worked as the Production Dramaturg on CALL ME IZZY, and can be seen in some of the photos below.*

• Jean Smart returns to Broadway after 25 years in the one-woman play Call Me Izzy
• The Emmy winner will play eight roles in the 12-week limited engagement at Studio 54
• PEOPLE has exclusive rehearsal photos as Smart dives into role

Jean Smart is readying her return to Broadway.

The six-time Emmy Award-winning actress and Hacks star has begun rehearsals for Jamie Wax’s darkly comedic one-woman play, Call Me Izzy — a production that will mark her first role on the Rialto in 25 years.

PEOPLE has an exclusive first look inside the rehearsal room, with photographs by celebrity shutterbug Luke Fontana.

Smart was snapped smiling on the milestone day as she chatted with Wax, director Sarna Lapine (Sunday in the Park with George) and members of the creative team including scenic designer Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams.

In addition, the play will include costume design by Tom Broecker, lighting design by Donald Holder and sound design by Beth Lake.

“Jean Smart is a deeply experienced and generous theater artist,” Lapine tells PEOPLE in a statement. “She is every bit as talented and impressive as her reputation, and she dove into the first day of rehearsal as though she’d known Izzy her whole life. But she’s also hilarious and warm and the kind of generous collaborator who makes it a real joy to come to work every day. She’s the heart of this team already.”

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Call Me Izzy will play a 12-week limited engagement at New York City’s Studio 54 from May 24 to Aug. 17, with an opening night set for June 12.

Though this will be the world premiere of Wax’s play, several developmental readings have been staged in the past, many of which Smart has been a part of.

The play follows a woman in rural Louisiana with a secret that is, per an official release, “both her greatest gift and her only way out.” It’s described as “a moving tour de force portrait of a woman who resists being silenced by embracing her tenacity, humor and fiery imagination.”

Jean Smart Returning to Broadway After 25 Year-Absence in New Play Call Me Izzy

Smart, 73, will be playing eight different roles in the show, including Izzy. And during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last month, Smart admitted that she’s anxious about getting all that dialogue down.

“It’s like, 80 pages!” Smart said on the late night show, which aired on Wednesday, April 9. “I’m a little scared, because the longest speech I’ve ever done in a play was thirty minutes, like a fifteen-and-a-half page monologue. [I] just sat in a straight-backed chair and talked to the audience for a half an hour.”

“That was scary, and that was when I had a lot of brain cells — I was in my thirties!” she added, prompting laughter from the audience.

Kimmel argued that the benefit of her one-woman show was that if she messed up, there’d be no domino effect with other actors. He also noted that no one would know if she tripped up her lines either.

But shouldering the action entirely on her own sparked extra concerns. “The problem is, if you get nervous on stage, your mind just goes blank,” Smart said. “You couldn’t tell somebody the name of the play, the plot, the day of the week it was. That rush of adrenaline just wipes everything else out of your brain!”

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Jean Smart Admits She’s ‘Scared’ of Forgetting Her Lines in 1-Woman Broadway Show: ‘Your Mind Just Goes Blank’

Smart was last on Broadway in 2000, leading a revival of the George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart classic The Man Who Came to Dinner alongside comedic legends Nathan Lane, Julie Halston and Harriet Harris. Her performance earned her a Tony Award nomination.

Her Broadway debut came in 1981, playing Marlene Dietrich in Piaf.

Of course, Smart is known for her work on screen, first with her breakout role as the effervescent Charlene Frazier Stillfield in the 1986 CBS sitcom Designing Women.

She went on to win six Emmys for her roles as Lana Gardner in NBC’s Frasier, Regina Newley in ABC’s Samantha Who? and, most recently, Deborah Vance in the HBO Max comedy, Hacks. She also earned nominations for her work in The District, Harry’s Law, Fargo, Watchmen and Mare of Easttown.

Other notable screen credits include The Brady Bunch, Sweet Home Alabama, Garden State, I Heart Huckabees, The Accountant, A Simple Favor and Babylon.

Tickets for Call Me Izzy are on sale now.

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