NBC has announced that it will reunite Emmy-winning Broadway stars Sean Hayes, Megan Mullally, Debra Messing, and Eric McCormack for 10 new episodes of the hit TV comedy Will & Grace.
The series, which originally ran 1998 to 2006, will return during the 2017-2018 season for 10 new episodes. During its original run it was the highest-rated sitcom in the adults 18-49 demographic from 2001 to 2005, and was nominated for 83 Emmy Awards, winning 16 of them, including Outstanding Comedy Series.
Since the show’s cancellation, Hayes appeared on Broadway in Promises, Promises (2010, Tony nomination) and earlier this season in An Act of God; Mullally—who had been on Broadway in Grease! and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying before the NBC series—was featured in It’s Only a Play (2014) and the 2007 musical adaptation of Young Frankenstein; Messing appeared in Outside Mullingar in 2014; and McCormack, who had earlier appeared in The Music Man and The Play What I Wrote, returned in the 2012 production of Gore Vidal’s The Best Man.
Will & Grace, which was one of the first successful shows to regularly feature gay characters in leading roles, began to be discussed seriously for a revival after a clip posted during the 2016 Presidental Election attracted more than 6 million views on YouTube.
Watch it here:
The show‘s revival will reunite the original creative team. Series founders Max Mutchnick and David Kohan will act as showrunners and executive producers. James Burrows, who directed every episode of the show during its initial eight-year run, has returned as director and co-executive producer.
