In the revival of It’s Only a Play, Terrence McNally demonstrates how gathering six showbiz types (and one naïve coat-checker) in a Manhattan townhouse can be an exercise in uproarious humor and serial celebrity name-dropping.

The group has assembled at sole producer Julia Budder’s home for the opening-night party for The Golden Egg, a new comedy by the promising playwright Peter Austin (Matthew Broderick).

Not surprisingly, the evening is fraught with tension growing out of the awaited critics’ verdicts. And, mirroring the real world of New York theatre, the make-or-break holy grail of reviews is what really matters.

“Waiting for Ben Brantley and the Times is what the night is all about,” says Ira Drew (Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham), a proudly-savage critic with a bad toupee whose review of an earlier Austin play lamented the failure of his parents to smother him in his crib.

Martin Short, Stockard Channing and Matthew Broderick as three show biz types in search of a rave review.      Photo: Joan Marcus

The luxurious bedroom set (by Tony winning scenic designer Scott Pask) is beyond capacious—certainly enough so to contain all the egos, insecurities and farcical moments that spin out of control even as the rest of the partygoers are said to be downstairs, whooping it up.

“The party is a composite,” Abraham said. “It’s a combination of two or three parties for [theatrical] turkeys, and I was involved in one of them. It was a very famous party at producer Adela Holzer’s townhouse on 74th Street for Legend, which I was in with Elizabeth Ashley.”

The show lasted only five performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre—the same theatre the fictional The Golden Egg just opened. The high-profile cast has a grand time with McNally’s pull-out-all-the-stops name dropping, replete with updated and often-catty references (Katie Couric introduced Rita Moreno as Chita Rivera!; Alec Baldwin kicked Ira Drew!); and even some of the current season’s Broadway shows (“I certainly didn’t invite the cast of A Delicate Balance,” says Budder).

Abraham, a veteran of McNally’s works, was invited to join the cast of It’s Only a Play nearly 30 years ago in its first incarnation. His gleeful portrayal of Drew offers a great contrast to his dark and mysterious role as a black ops CIA official in the hit Showtime series Homeland. “I’ve really missed making people laugh,” he said. “It’s what I did most of my career before Amadeus. It’s like coming home.”

Abraham and Broderick are holdovers from the revival’s original cast, along with Stockard Channing (Virginia Noyes, the drug-addled star of The Golden Egg) and Micah Stock (Gus, the coat boy). And now, Martin Short has replaced Nathan Lane as Jimmy Wicker, a wisecracking sitcom star and Austin’s best friend.

Also new is two-time Tony-winner Katie Finneran who replaced Megan Mullally as ditzy hostess Budder, who has a penchant for misquoting famous lines (“There’s no business like the one we’re in,”); and 30 Rock’s Maulik Pancholy replaced Rupert Grint as the bizarre wunderkind director Frank Finger.

It’s the Lane-to-Short change that proves most prominent, however—a shift from one comedic genius to another. Short’s mannerisms, including those of one of his famous creations, Ed Grimley, seep in and are as welcome as Lane’s onstage tummler persona.

“The two men are masters of their craft,” Abraham said, going on to observe that changing alchemy of the cast has been like listening to the same violin concerto played by two great artists.

“The first several days with the new cast were slippery; everybody was trying to find themselves. It didn’t start to click until the fourth or fifth performance when you think, `Ah, there it is.’ It’s astonishing; it’s a gift to see it evolve," said Abraham.