Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin return to Broadway together after almost 20 years: the couple joins “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play”

Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin will return to the Broadway stage together for the first time in almost two decades: the famous television couple has joined the star cast of It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, the Christmas production that opens in November at the Broadhurst Theatre, as People reports.

According to the producers’ announcement, Rinna will play Violet and several other characters, while Hamlin takes the role of Mr Potter, George Bailey’s enemy, together with several supporting characters. They join three previously announced stars: Andrew Rannells as George Bailey, Megan Hilty as Mary Bailey and Tituss Burgess as the guardian angel Clarence. The news of the couple’s engagement was first revealed by Vulture, then carried by People and other American media.

The limited engagement will begin previews on November 4, with the official opening on November 18, and will run for only nine weeks, until January 3, 2027. The direction is by four-time Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks, and it marks the Broadway premiere of Joe Landry’s adaptation — a staging in the style of 1940s radio broadcasts, where a troupe of actors performs the story live on air, with foley sound effects created on stage and Christmas songs.

For Rinna and Hamlin, married since 1997, the return is personal: in 2007 Rinna made her Broadway debut as Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago, where Hamlin played Billy Flynn alongside her. Rinna is also known for her eight seasons on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, while Hamlin also has Broadway credentials from Summer and Smoke and Awake and Sing!

The Broadway premiere comes in a jubilee year: Frank Capra’s classic film, with James Stewart and Donna Reed, was released in 1946 — so it turns 80 this year. Based on Philip Van Doren Stern’s short story “The Greatest Gift”, the film received five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and became an enduring festive tradition. Landry’s radio adaptation, first written for a Connecticut high school in 1996, has meanwhile become one of the most performed works of American theatre.