A ‘Hacks’ star is returning to Broadway, and she wants you to call her by her name

Jean Smart has wowed audiences in a variety of roles, from older comedian Deborah Vance on Hacks to the memorable, witty, and dry Carol in Garden State. Now she’s going back to theater.

Smart is starring in the Broadway one-woman show Call Me Izzy. Broadway World describes Call Me Izzy as “a darkly comedic story about one woman in rural Louisiana who has a secret.” Count me in! According to The Hollywood Reporter, Smart’s Broadway resume includes starring in Piaf in 1981 and The Man Who Came To Dinner in 2000.

It’s inspiring to hear Smart talk about her theater background. In a 2024 interview with THR, Smart explained that after attending the University of Washington and majoring in theater, she performed during three summers at the renowned Oregon Shakespeare Festival. If anyone wants a push to stretch themselves creatively, just listen to Smart’s reason for leaving the popular sitcom Designing Women in 1991. She said, “I think I didn’t want to get used to such an easy schedule and money,” and said “This is fun, but not why I became an actor.” In an interview with Parade, she shared that she felt secure when she got to Hollywood thanks to the time she spent doing theater. As she described, theater actors do eight live performances weekly, but convince audiences that it’s fresh and new.

Although more than a few actors wish they could make a living in the theater and switch to film and TV because it’s more lucrative, or sadly change careers entirely, Smart did well from the start. As she told Variety, “I feel guilty sometimes because I feel like I didn’t really struggle” like other actors who needed a day job to support themselves.

Some might say live performance is a lost art, and it doesn’t help the overall mood that over 20 performances have been taken off the Kennedy Center’s schedule now that Donald Trump is the Board of Trustees chairman. However, I’m moved by the fact that an Emmy winner like Smart, who has reached a point in her career where she can truly pick the roles she wants to play, is choosing to star in a Broadway one-woman show. Smart’s love of theater proves that art, creativity, and stories are still here to comfort everyone, even when certain people want to censor the stories being told. The woman in Call Me Izzy sounds just as complex as some of the challenging female characters Smart has portrayed, including her Hacks comedian, Deborah, who wants to live her life on her terms and not be told when her career is over.

While she hasn’t been back to Broadway in over two decades, Smart played Mrs. Erlynne in the Oscar Wilde play Lady Windermere’s Fan at the Williamstown Theater Festival in 2005. Now that Smart has Call Me Izzy lined up, maybe she’ll star in even more plays. But she still has to appear in Hacks season 4, of course.

Fans will no doubt jump at the chance to see Smart lend her talent to Broadway again. As THR reported, Call Me Izzy. will run May 24 to Aug. 17, 2025 at Studio 54. Anyone who lives in NYC or wants to plan a trip (what a great reason!) can purchase tickets at 10 a.m. E.T. starting on Mar. 18, 2025.