Must-See Late Night Clip: Larry David Is Dreading His Broadway Debut

The fictional “Larry David” of Curb Your Enthusiasm had a disastrous Broadway debut as Max Bialystock in The Producers. When the real Larry David makes his actual Broadway debut in a new play he wrote called Fish in the Dark next month, he’s not expecting it to go much better.

“I really got myself in a pickle,” the Seinfeld creator told David Letterman last night. “Even with all my deceptive skills, I cannot squirm out this. I got out of the army by pretending to be psychopath, but this — this I can’t get out of.” He had hoped the Ebola virus might shut down Broadway, but had no such luck.

David explained that he wrote the play — about a Jewish family sitting shiva — but never planned to star in it. “I wrote it to stand in the back and watch,” he said. “And just, coincidentally, the main character sounds very much like me.”

“I don’t even like the theater,” he admitted later. “I don’t go to the theater. There’s a lot of hustle and bustle outside in the lobby. It’s like going to the airport for me.”

When David starting begging Letterman for advice, the only idea he had was, “I’m retiring, could you retire? Just announce your retirement and we can leave together.”

Watch video below, in two clips, via CBS:

[Photo via screengrab]

— —

>> Follow Matt Wilstein (@TheMattWilstein) on Twitter

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!