Steve Carell and John C. Reilly will star in the Broadway revival of Neil Simon’s classic The Odd Couple. Helmed by Tony Award-winning director Thomas Kail (Hamilton), the revival opens on March 23 at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre.
Marking what would have
been the 100th birthday of playwright Simon, his seminal play first opened on Broadway in 1965 and starred Walter Matthau and Art Carney. The original production won four Tonys, including Best Play. It also spawned the 1968 film and five-season-long popular television series of the same name, as well as countless subsequent productions worldwide.
“Neil Simon wrote one of the great American comedies, and it is an honor and a thrill to be part of this exceptional team bringing this play back to Broadway,” Kail said in a statement. “Underneath the extraordinary humor is something deeply human. Steve and John are two remarkable actors who can make an audience laugh uproariously one moment and move them deeply in the next. We aim to create a world that feels alive, immediate, and can clearly express why this play has endured for more than 60 years.”
“Why are we doing this? We need to laugh. Period,” one of the show’s producers, Jeffrey Seller, added.
General tickets go on sale beginning Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 10 a.m. ET via the show’s site.
Carell, who made his Broadway debut in 2024’s Uncle Vanya where he portrayed the titular role, will play Felix Unger. The actor has starred across the small and big screen, including in the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine, The Big Short, Beautiful Boy, Vice, Battle of the Sexes, Crazy, Stupid, Love, and the Despicable Me franchise. He won a Golden Globe for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy in 2006 for his role as Michael Scott in The Office.
Reilly will portray Oscar Madison. His Broadway credits include starring in Sam Shepard’s True West opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman, playing Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, and starring in Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s The Grapes of Wrath. He has also appeared in numerous films, including Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Gangs of New York, The Hours, The Aviator, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Step Brothers, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, The Sisters Brothers, and Stan & Ollie. In 2025, he released What’s Not to Love?, his debut album under his vaudevillian persona, Mister Romantic.
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