Amy Schumer will be among the cast members of the Broadway-run of Steve Martin’s new play, Meteor Shower, ensuring that, like Hamilton, there’s no way in hell I will ever get tickets to see it.
Joining Schumer will be fellow Broadway newcomer Keegan-Michael Key, as well as Laura Benanti and Alan Tudyk. The play itself is, according to the New York Times, “a marital comedy about two couples who get together for an evening of stargazing and sparring in an Ojai, Calif., backyard in 1993.”
The show has run previously in San Diego and New Haven, but the addition of Schumer and Key gave it the star-power it needed to push it through to New York.
“I can’t tell you how excited I am,” Martin told the Times. “I’ve been working on this for over 20 years—I wrote it in the ’90s, when it is set, but I didn’t finish it, I got distracted, and then it came back to me a couple of years ago.”
Reviews from the play’s earlier iterations have been mixed, but its current director, Jerry Zaks (of Hello, Dolly! acclaim), said that it’s in the process of being sharpened into a Broadway-caliber production.
“We’ve made adjustments, we’ve made cuts, he’s rewritten—we’ve just begun the process of trying to get the script to be everything it can be,” he said, calling it smart, funny and affecting. “Watching people connect, or struggle to connect, is the greatest spectator sport imaginable.”
Martin specifically sought Schumer out for the play, and offered her the gig after tracking her down at a house party. She’d previously acted in another one of his works, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, and he’d been impressed by her performance. Seems like she’s glad he did:
Meteor Shower begins previews on November 1, and will open on November 29.