by Mike Birbiglia is taking his newest comedy act to Broadway this fall.
“The New One,” which Birbiglia toured across the country this past year, and recently wrapped an off-Broadway run, will enjoy at least 12 weeks at the Cort Theatre, with previews starting Oct. 25.
I’m so excited to be bringing The New One to The Cort Theater on Broadway which is where I saw the great Kenneth Lonergan play This Is Our Youth. Which is fitting because this show is about somebody’s youth. Not mine. But somebody’s! I won’t tell you any more than that. The truth is I try not to tell people anything about my new show because, I find, the less you know about the show the more you will enjoy it. My goal is to make as many people laugh as possible and ideally several hundred will cry. My producer Kevin McCollum and the Shubert Organization are letting me do that in a space that will accommodate the right amount of people. Which is about 1,100. I’m pretty sure there are union regulations about entertaining more than 1,100 people at once. So we will limit it to 1,100 people laughing and 300 people crying. A lot of people thank their spouses when they make something but with this show I really do have to thank my wife, Jennifer Hope Stein, because she wrote a lot of the best lines. She’s a writer on the show and that was important to me because I wanted to convey the truth about what we experienced together- which I will tell you nothing more about. But man is it gonna make you laugh. And cry. (Please abide by the union crying vs. laughing regulations.) And I’m thrilled to share this journey with my wife Jen, my director Seth Barrish and designers Beowulf Boritt, Aaron Copp and Leon Rothenberg, as well as my longtime collaborators Ira Glass and Joe Birbiglia. We’re bringing this squad to a new party. Hopefully there’s pizza.
Birbiglia previously starred in off-Broadway productions of his shows Sleepwalk With Me, My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend, and Thank God For Jokes.
