Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder are taking their Emmy-nominated Hacks characters somewhere the HBO Max series has never sent them before: a live Hollywood stage. The pair will appear in character as veteran Las Vegas comedian Deborah Vance and younger comedy writer Ava Daniels for a one-night-only show at the Fonda Theatre, part of a For Your Consideration push as the series wraps its final season.
The event, titled Deborah Vance & Friends & Enemies Live!, is built as an in-world production set within the show's fictional universe rather than a standard panel or screening, according to Variety. HBO Max said the actresses will appear as their Hacks characters outside the series for the first time, as reported by MyNewsLA.com. Variety notes this marks the first time Smart and Einbinder have performed publicly in character as Deborah and Ava outside the series.
The show is scheduled to run from about 7:30 to 8:30 p.m., and the station's report indicates tickets sold out less than 24 hours after they became available. Attendees will get pizza, soft pretzels, popcorn, and drinks before the hour-long program begins, per the same account. Additional Hacks cast members are expected to make surprise appearances during the event.
An Ensemble Built for the Occasion
Beyond Smart and Einbinder, nominated co-stars Megan Stalter and Paul W. Downs are slated to participate in character, along with guest acting nominees Leslie Bibb, Cherry Jones, Laurie Metcalf, and Kaitlin Olson, according to Paperpop. Hacks was created by Downs along with Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky, and centers on the relationship between Deborah and Ava, the two comedians at the heart of the series.
The show's fifth season, which ended on May 28, 2026, was its final one, according to CBR, turning the Fonda Theatre event into both a farewell for the cast and a campaign stop. HBO Max has described the performance as an in-world production tied to the second phase of Emmy campaigning.
Timed to the Start of Final Voting
The timing is no accident. Final-round voting for the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards opens August 17 and concludes August 26, 2026, according to the Television Academy calendar, placing the live show right at the start of that decisive voting window. Hacks is campaigning hard following its final season, and the numbers back up the effort: the series set an all-time record with 24 Emmy nominations for its fifth season, the most nominations for a comedy series this year and the most-nominated single season of a comedy series in television history, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
The Pitt led all programs with 25 Emmy nominations this year, putting Hacks a single nomination behind the overall leader but still atop the comedy field. For Smart, the stakes are personal as well as historic. She has won four consecutive Lead Actress in a Comedy Series Emmys for Hacks, and a fifth win in 2026 would give her eight career acting Emmys, tying Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Cloris Leachman for the most acting Emmys won by a female performer, per the Los Angeles Times.
A Nearly Century-Old Hollywood Stage
The Fonda Theatre, located at 6126 Hollywood Boulevard, originally opened on October 20, 1926, as Carter DeHaven's Music Box Theatre and now operates as a 1,200-capacity venue managed by Goldenvoice, according to venue records published on Wikipedia. That intimate scale helps explain how the show sold out so quickly, drawing both industry voters and die-hard fans of the series into the same room for a performance that exists nowhere else.
The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards will be presented on September 14, 2026, broadcast live on NBC and hosted by Mariska Hargitay at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, according to CBS News. Whether Deborah Vance and Ava Daniels take one more bow at the ceremony itself remains to be seen, but for one night in Hollywood, they already have.
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