Joyful Heart in the News

(NEW YORK) -- Debra Messing is best known for her TV roles on Smash and Will & Grace, but the actress says it's always been a "lifetime dream" to star in a Broadway play. Well, her dream will come true next year when she makes her Broadway debut in a play entitled Outside Mullingar. 

"This is literally a lifetime dream finally becoming a reality," Messing tells ABC News Radio. "I fell in love with the theater at a very young age. It's been my first and most enduring love. And I always had a dream that someday I would perform a play on Broadway. All of the elements have come together in just the right way with Outside Mullingar."

In the romantic play, written by John Patrick Shanley, the 45-year-old actress is set to portray an Irish farm woman who lives next door to a quirky man. It opens Jan. 23 at the Manhattan Theatre Club's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in New York City.

Messing says she's already preparing for rehearsals, which begin next month. "First of all, the play takes place in Ireland and the actor who I'm playing opposite is native to Ireland. So he doesn't have to worry about an accent, however I do want to have a very authentic accent so I am planning on working with a dialect coach," she explains.

Messing says her experience on the now canceled musical series, Smash, didn't necessarily prepare her for the Great White Way. "What it might have done is whet my appetite a little more than usual, being in that pretend world.  But interacting with real Broadway stars it was absolutely thrilling," she adds.

Before she begins rehearsals for Outside Mullingar, Messing is participating in the NO MORE Campaign, a celebrity-driven initiative to encourage bystanders to get involved and end domestic and sexual assault.  No More was sparked by Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation. Messing says she got on board because primarily Hargitay is her best friend. She continues,

"If everyone starts talking about it then more survivors will come forward and share their stories and perpetrators will feel challenged."

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio