The playwright Lucas Hnath made his Broadway debut last year with a drama starring Laurie Metcalf in an imagined sequel for one of the most famous women in theater history, Nora Helmer of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House.”

Next year, Mr. Hnath will return to Broadway with a drama starring Ms. Metcalf in an imagined alternate universe for one of the most famous women in politics: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Hillary and Clinton” is a play that depicts a 2008 evening in which a presidential candidate named Hillary Clinton, struggling in Iowa against a more charismatic opponent, calls on her husband for help. The play will be the first with Mrs. Clinton as a protagonist to reach Broadway (a musical featuring a fictionalized Mrs. Clinton, called “Soft Power,” had a production in Los Angeles and San Francisco this year and is being revised for the Public Theater, which is Off Broadway).

Ms. Metcalf, who won a Tony Award last year for her role in Mr. Hnath’s “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” and another one this year in Edward Albee’s “Three Tall Women,” will star opposite John Lithgow, also a two-time Tony winner, for “The Changing Room” and “Sweet Smell of Success.” The play will be directed by Joe Mantello.