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After a stellar 2023, Sarah Jessica Parker is embarking on another passion project – here in the UK
IN MANY WAYS, the second half of 2023 belonged to Sarah Jessica Parker. From the flurried excitement about the return of And Just Like That for its second season last June to the forensic dissection of her every outfit (the impact of that Moncler mega-coat cannot be understated) to the sea of memes about Aidan Shaw’s unsightly undergarments (we couldn’t help but wonder, could enormous Y-fronts ever be sexy?) Parker and the girls got us all talking. A third season was confirmed and is due next year, but it isn’t about to be a year of rest and relaxation for SJP. In fact, she has now landed in London for the highly anticipated West End stint of her Broadway production of Plaza Suite, in which she co-stars with her real-life husband Matthew Broderick.
In it, Broderick, 61, and Parker, 58, play three different couples whose lives unravel in one hotel suite – it was described by one critic as ‘a referendum on modern marriage’. The New York show shattered box-office records during its 19-week run, becoming the third-highest grossing play revival in Broadway history. Now they will be hoping for a similarly rapturous response during their 10-week run at the Savoy Theatre, where they will be performing until the end of March.
Plaza Suite isn’t the first time the couple have taken to the stage together since they married 27 years ago in May. (They surprised their guests, who thought they were attending a party, with a wedding – and the bride wore a black Morgane Le Fay gown.) They made their Broadway debut together in a 1996 production of How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. Back then, Parker praised the man who would go on to be her husband, saying, ‘He’s probably the funniest fellow I’ve met in my whole life. He’s so bright, so handsome, I think he’s the most handsome man I’ve seen… And he inspires me. I’m mad for him, totally.’ Eighteen years and three children later, these words remain a rare insight into what makes the relationship tick. In an interview last year, Parker said, of what’s quietly become one of the longest standing relationships in Hollywood, that she does not ‘make proclamations about my marriage. I don’t talk about my kids.’
While they have both had notable TV and film careers, it was their shared love of Broadway that first brought Broderick and Parker together, when they were introduced by Parker’s brothers, who ran a New York theatre group in the early ’90s (she got her big break as Annie on Broadway in the ’70s). Parker’s ‘stage chops’ are part of what Broderick has said he loves about his wife.
During the New York run of Plaza Suite, he said, ‘[She’s] such a
