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The comedian and actor Larry David, the star of HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and the Emmy Award-winning co-creator and head writer of “Seinfeld,” will make his Broadway debut this winter in his first play “Fish in the Dark.”

In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Mr. David said that the play was a comedy about a death in a family, with about 15 characters, and that he was playing “somebody very similar to Larry David – it might even be Larry David with a different name.”

Mr. David, who already played a semi-fictionalized version of himself on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” said he didn’t know how he felt about becoming a playwright and actor on Broadway.

“I’ll be without anything that I’ve become used to,” Mr. David said about the differences between 30-minute episodic television and performing live on Broadway several times a week. “I haven’t been in a play since the eighth grade, when I did ‘Charley’s Aunt.’ I seem to remember wearing a dress. That’s it. And I’m not even really an actor. But I’m still sleeping at night, and I hope that continues.”

For years, Mr. David said, he thought he’d write a play if he ever had a good idea. On “Curb Your Enthusiasm” he worked at one point on the Broadway musical “The Producers,” but he said that the inspiration for his new play was the death of a friend’s father and not the “Producers” story arc.



“I thought it would be pretty cool to write a play someday. I didn’t think it’d be pretty cool to be in it. It’s not like I would go to the theater and look up on stage and say, ‘I could be in that.’ I didn’t think of myself playing the character, but of course I write characters very close to me.”

He gave the play, which he started writing last summer, to the award-winning theater and film producer Scott Rudin, who encouraged him to act in it. “I didn’t really want to do it, but, I mean, do you know Scott? He’s a very persuasive fellow, and I give him a lot of credit for that,” Mr. David said.

“I had been prepared to just go to some rehearsals as the writer, watch quietly, say a few words, then go to a few performances and pace around the back of the theater, give some notes, pace some more. But now this. Something has gone awry,” he said with a slight laugh.

“Fish in the Dark” will be directed by Anna D. Shapiro, who won a Tony Award in 2008 for staging “August: Osage County.” She and Mr. Rudin are currently working together on the Broadway play “This Is Our Youth,” which begins performances on Aug. 18, and they previously teamed up in 2011 on the Tony-nominated hit play “The ___________ With the Hat.” Mr. Rudin has won multiple Tonys for Broadway productions including this year’s “Raisin in the Sun” and the blockbuster musical “The Book of Mormon.”

The play will run at a Shubert theater, to be announced later, and will open on March 5.

Mr. David said that contrary to earlier reports, his friend Jerry Seinfeld was never involved with the play as a potential director or performer.

As for “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which had its last season of new episodes in 2011, Mr. David said he hadn’t ruled out another season. “But I’m not going to mentally do that to myself right now,” he said of making a decision about the cable series. “But if I did do another season, this play would push that schedule back.”

He said he didn’t want to divulge any more details about the new play, and added that no decisions had been made yet on additional casting.