Julia Louis-Dreyfus Set to Make Broadway Debut in ‘Other Desert Cities’ Revival

Broadway’s first revival of Jon Robin Baitz’s Tony-winning drama “Other Desert Cities” is set to open this fall at the Hudson Theatre with a cast led by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Joe Keery, and Lily Rabe.

Previews will begin September 29 ahead of an official opening night on October 18. The limited engagement is scheduled to run through January 17, 2027. Tony Award winner John Benjamin Hickey will direct the production.

The revival will mark Louis-Dreyfus’ Broadway debut. She will play Polly opposite Harris as Lyman, Janney as Silda, Keery as Trip, and Rabe as Brooke. Casting is by Jim Carnahan.

In a statement, Baitz said returning the play to New York was not originally part of his plans. 

“I had, more or less, talked myself out of imagining Other Desert Cities back in New York. But John Hickey is family to me, and I trust him completely. We go back longer than I ever imagined: he hears a play—its ideas, its feeling, its music—with an intelligence and knowingness that anchors a room.”

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“And with this company of actors a playwright dreams about, I thought that if there were still something alive in it, they would find it,” Baitz continued. “What’s slightly unnerving is that nearly 20 years later, through all the fractures and divisions, the questions remain the same: how to live with who we are and what we’ve done and call that a life.” 

Hickey said revisiting the play recently left a strong impression on him, sharing, “I have loved Robbie’s plays since he began writing them,” HIckey continued. “I acted in two of them early in my career, and when I recently revisited Other Desert Cities, I was stunned at how relevant the play remains, maybe now more than ever.” 

“Desert Cities” first premiered Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater in 2011 before transferring to Broadway later that year. The play centers on a writer who threatens to publish a memoir that exposes a long-buried family secret, creating tension within her politically divided family. The work later became a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

An American Express cardholder presale begins May 27 at 10 a.m. ET. General ticket sales begin June 3 at 10 a.m. ET through the production’s official website.