Cynthia Nixon is set to direct a Broadway production of “Last Summer at Bluefish Cove,” Jane Chambers’s groundbreaking play that debuted Off Broadway in 1980. Ellen DeGeneres, Lily Tomlin, Harriet Newman Leve, Portia de Rossi and Jane Wagner will produce.

The story follows several gay women who are enjoying their usual summer vacation at the fictional seaside town of Bluefish Cove. A straight woman unexpectedly joins them after leaving her husband, unaware of what she has stepped into.

After its debut, the play was lauded for its well-rounded representation of gay women at a time when they were absent from mainstream theater productions. (The New York Times contributor Elisabeth Vincentelli has argued that stories of lesbians still struggle to make it to Broadway.)

“None of the women in this play apologize for being lesbians,” Chambers said in an interview with The Times in 1981. “They accept it and go on to lead productive lives. I don’t know why that should be a threat to people.”