In his dressing room at the Cort Theater, Larry David started eating dinner, but not before lowering expectations. “I should warn you: I’m not a skilled eater,” he said, leaning forward to grab a white plastic takeout bag. “I have problems getting the food onto my utensil and getting it into my mouth properly. It’s not a pretty picture.”

Like the character he plays on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Mr. David is amusingly and crabbily obsessed with the minutiae of life. So is his character in his new comedy, “Fish in the Dark,” the son of a family patriarch on his deathbed. The play is full of the same griping anxiety as the rest of his work, but it’s also a departure. It’s the first time he’s acted onstage since eighth grade.

After the last season of “Curb,” in 2011 (he says there may be more episodes in the future), Mr. David dabbled in new forms, writing and starring in a television movie, “Clear History,” and appearing in a Three Stooges biopic. Neither had close to the success of “Curb,” let alone “Seinfeld,” the landmark show he created with its star, Jerry Seinfeld, the series whose nine-season run meant that Mr. David would never have to work again if he didn’t want to.

But now, hoping to follow in the footsteps of the “South Park” creators, who parlayed television-comedy success into the stage blockbuster “The Book of Mormon,” he has written and stars in the hottest Broadway ticket of the spring, directed by Anna D. Shapiro and co-starring Rita Wilson and Jayne Houdyshell.