Danny DeVito stars in 'I Need That,' Broadway play by part-time Vermont resident

Like many people who were housebound in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Theresa Rebeck took a look at her surroundings and had one thought: I have too much stuff.

Others may have tidied up, or just accepted the clutter that filled their homes. Rebeck wrote a play about it.

She created “I Need That,” a play now on Broadway starring Danny DeVito and the renowned comic actor’s daughter, Lucy DeVito. The DeVitos and the play’s third actor, Ray Anthony Thomas, appeared in Vermont in 2022 for a staged reading of “I Need That” presented by the Dorset Theatre Festival, where Rebeck is the resident playwright. The Dorset Playhouse is near Rebeck’s home in southern Vermont, where she spends time when not living in Brooklyn.

“I Need That” is about Danny DeVito’s character, Sam, hoarding too much stuff. But the play digs deeper, according to its author.

“It’s a metaphor for how your life becomes smaller as you age,” Rebeck said. “I think the need for him to throw everything out is also real. It’s a metaphor for what we all go through.”

Collaborating with Danny DeVito

There was a sense in those dark pandemic days in early 2020 that we didn’t know if we’d ever be allowed out of our homes, Rebeck said in a recent phone conversation from New York. That feeling of isolation among her accumulation of objects took over.

“I had been thinking about stuff in my house – there’s always a sense that there’s too much clutter,” Rebeck said. She said she’s not a hoarder, but her husband does find the clutter frustrating. In a similar vein, Rebeck’s parents are elderly and she and her siblings are helping them maneuver through the process of giving up some of the objects and some of the freedoms, driving and the like, that they had when they were younger.

Rebeck talked with Tony Award-nominated director Moritz von Stuelpnagel, with whom she has worked frequently, about the thoughts and script ideas she was having. She said von Stuelpnagel knew DeVito and that the actor was interested in working with his daughter on a project. He helped line the DeVitos up, and Rebeck tailored “I Need That” in part around DeVito’s likeable-curmudgeon persona.

DeVito has been known for his comic skills since starring on TV in the late 1970s in “Taxi,” up to and including his time on “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and his current “Jersey Mike’s” commercials. Rebeck happily deferred to DeVito throughout the play’s development.

“Everybody was kind of faithful to what we had written. But when we got to our feet, Danny always had some evolving idea about, ‘We could try this,’” Rebeck said. “It always worked. It was a thrill for me to be able to collaborate on comedy with him.”

DeVito’s input didn’t ruffle Rebeck’s feathers like it might with some other playwrights.

“There’s a different kind of attitude in some quarters – you know, David Mamet, Edward Albee, who were very rigid about ‘You have to do it exactly the way it’s written.’ I’m not interested in that,” said Rebeck, an Emmy Award nominee in the 1990s for her writing on the TV show “NYPD Blue.” “I like the feeling of collaboration, but being in control.”

It helps when a popular actor like DeVito takes top billing.

“People love him across all generations. He’s beloved,” Rebeck said. “It’s exciting to be in a house with that kind of energy.”

Digging into ‘Dig’ off-Broadway

“I Need That” began on Broadway on Oct. 13 and continues its extended run through Dec. 30. While her Broadway show was opening, Rebeck was in the midst of directing her off-Broadway play “Dig,” which began in previews Sept. 2 and closed Nov. 5. Set in a plant shop in a struggling neighborhood, “Dig” asks if, like bedraggled flora and communities, some bedraggled people can be salvaged.

Rebeck doesn’t always direct her plays, but enjoyed doing that with “Dig.” “That was very relaxing for me,” she said.

It helped that “Dig,” which Rebeck directed at Dorset Theatre Festival in 2019, had been staged before. The set design and score carried over.

“There were big aspects of it that were just already finished. Even so, it was a little exhausting,” Rebeck said. “At one point I thought, ‘I don’t know why I’m so tired all the time.’ My husband said, ‘It’s because you’re doing everything.’”

“I do not recommend doing two plays back-to-back in New York,” Rebeck said.

If you go

WHAT: “I Need That” by Theresa Rebeck, starring Danny DeVito and presented by the Roundabout Theatre Company

WHEN: Through Dec. 30

WHERE: American Airlines Theatre/Todd Haimes Theatre, 227 W. 42^nd St., New York

INFORMATION: $102-$344. https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/get-tickets/2023-2024-season/i-need-that/

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Danny DeVito stars on Broadway in 'I Need That' by part-time Vermonter