Written by John Patrick Shanley, who won the best-screenplay Oscar for Moonstruck and a Pulitzer Prize and best-play Tony for Doubt: A Parable, the one-act play follows Danny and Roberta, two broken people who meet by chance at a bar in the Bronx.


Abbott, who has been a regular player in the off-Broadway theater circuit for quite some time, has long considered Danny and the Deep Blue Sea to be one of his favorite plays, and was a champion in bringing it back to life.

“Chris sent me the play last year, and as soon as I read it, I knew we had to do it,” Plaza says. “I couldn’t pass up Shanley’s dialogue! It is so fun and juicy, and the characters are tragic and beautiful.”

Between Jeff Ward’s stage directorial debut and working with Plaza, Abbott feels like he hit the theater jackpot. “Everyone on this team is a dream,” he says. “To get to work with Aubrey and Jeff on this every day feels like we tricked the system somehow.” Danny and the Deep Blue Sea first premiered in 1983, with John Turturro and June Stein originating the roles Abbott and Plaza will be taking on. “I feel incredibly lucky to be working with actors who are as extraordinary as Chris and Aubrey, and the fact that we are also great friends has only made the process that much more rewarding,” says Ward. “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea is such a timeless and deeply resonant play.”

This fall’s adaptation, which begins previews on October 30 and opens November 13, will take place at the jewel box Lucille Lortel Theatre in Manhattan’s West Village. It will have a limited 10-week run. “The process will be the joy, and doing a show that people will be moved by will be the hope,” says Abbott. “I can’t wait to start.”