Nine Wonderfully Weird Things We Learned About Fish in the Dark Scribe & Star Larry David

Larry David, everyone's favorite professional curmudgeon, has plenty of experience with the small screen. As the co-creator and head writer of Seinfeld (and the voice of George Steinbrenner), he helped redefine the television comedy—and he did it again playing "himself" on HBO's hilarious and insanely popular Curb Your Enthusiasm. Now he's taking on a whole different kind of challenge: His first play Fish in the Dark, in which he is also an unlikely star, opens at the Cort Theatre on March 2. He's been hitting the media circuit to talk about the play, which centers on 15 characters as they deal with a death in the family, and he's shared some pretty interesting tidbits along the way. No surprise here—he's not your typical Broadway star.

1. He thinks he can't act
In an unusual move for someone whose name is on a Broadway marquee, David is the first to admit that he's no actor. He's only taken one acting class—ever—and even then he knew it wasn't for him. “You know how I realized I’m not an actor?" David told Vanity Fair. "Because if I’m on the stage my instinct is to talk to the audience, not the other actors." Needless to say, he had a lot to learn. "When we started, he didn’t know stage left, stage right, upstage, downstage,” said co-star Rosie Perez. Good thing he's got vets like Perez and onstage wife Rita Wilson looking out for him.

2. He's not crazy about the theater
Not only does David not care for acting on stage, he doesn't even like being an audience member. "You go there, it's a lot of hustle and bustle," he told David Letterman. "It's like going to the airport for me. I don't care for it, and I'm nervous for the actors that they're going to forget their lines. It's scary." And he's none too happy about being on the other side of the footlights, either: “Not a day goes by that I don’t regret it.”

3. He is, however, a stage veteran
This is David's Broadway debut, but he's not a total naïf when it comes to the stage—he starred in a production of Charley's Aunt when he was in the eighth grade, thankyouverymuch. The film version starred Jack Benny, and he played the Jack Benny role. "I don't remember it being terrible," he told Howard Stern. "I think my parents liked it." From David, that's practically ecstatic praise.

4. A tragedy inspired Fish in the Dark
David is famous for mining comedy from his everyday life, and this play is no exception. He got the idea for Fish in the Dark from his friend and lawyer Lloyd Braun (who also inspired the well-coiffed, over-achieving character on Seinfeld of the same name). After Braun's father passed away two years ago, David went to visit him. As Braun told Vulture, “We’re sitting shiva, and Larry’s over the first day at my house, and I was telling him a whole bunch of stories of what had gone on for the last few days, because some were crazy and hilarious, like a relative flying in from wherever ’cause they want to be in show business. It’s an outlet for me. We start talking about how it’s incredible material. Larry says, 'It’s a Broadway play.'"

5. He has hangups about costume changes
David may be getting used to this whole "life in the theater" thing, but there's one thing he's not ready to budge on: dressing room rules. "Yeah, I don’t like getting undressed in places," he said. So he asked director Anna D. Shapiro why he can't just wear his first costume in his hotel room—and he's got her convinced. "At first, I thought it was the silliest question,” Shapiro says. “But then I thought, Why couldn’t we give him a rack of clothes at his hotel?" David: 1. Theater conventions: 0.

6. He's only doing it for the hotel sex
One thing David has made abundantly clear is that he had no intention of starring in this play when he wrote it, but now that he's stuck he's found a silver lining—he's living in a hotel during his New York tenure. "In the hotel if you have a sexual encounter, and of course I expect to, it's over, they're gone," he told Letterman. "There's no messy goodbyes or emotional scenes, it's all done. And it's hotel sex too, which…come on. Hotel sex is different." 

7. He hoped for a plague
David's characters (including his TV alter-ego George Costanza) are great at weaseling out of things they don't want to do, but with Fish in the Dark he's finally found something he can't escape. "Even with all my deceptive skills I cannot squirm out of this. I got out of the army by pretending to be a psychopath, but this, this I can't get out of. I thought the Ebola virus might do it. I thought, 'Hey there's a plague—fantastic.' They'll shut down the city; there'll be no Broadway. I'm done. It was great news." Not sure "great" is the word we'd use here, Larry, but we see what you're saying.

8. His next play idea already failed
Fish is still in previews, but he's already got his second play ready to go. What is this gem in waiting? An evening of all the failed SNL sketches he ever wrote. David was an SNL writer for the '84-'85 season (except for one little blip where he quit in a huff, then came back on Monday like nothing had happened. Sound familiar, Costanza fans?) but only one of his sketches ever made it on air. Better late than never, eh?

9. Above all, he's a really, really nice guy
Larry David's TV personas make him seem unbearably prickly; even Anna Shapiro was worried about getting into the rehearsal room with him. “I thought he would be neurotic in a not-amusing way," she said. "I thought I would encounter the darkness behind his humor. And I just haven’t had that. I find him to be incredibly warm, very friendly, really nice, and in the relationship really respectful, really generous. I can’t say enough about him as a person." Awww! Welcome to Broadway, Larry David.