George Clooney is heading back to a New York stage this Sunday, teaming up with Betty Gilpin, Laverne Cox, Adam Scott, Glenn Fleshler and Shane Paul McGhie for a one-night-only reading of Clark Gregg's political comedy “Smear.” The show kicks off at 7 p.m. ET somewhere in the city's Theater District, though organizers aren't saying exactly where.
According to Deadline, the venue is being kept under wraps for security reasons, a detail that has turned the evening into as much a puzzle as a performance. The cast lineup, however, is very much public: Clooney will share the stage with Gilpin, Cox, Scott, Fleshler and McGhie for Gregg's playwriting debut, which centers on two jaded former lovers turned campaign operatives clashing over a North Carolina congressional seat, as Time Out reports. Clark Gregg previously wrote the screenplay for What Lies Beneath, though Smear marks his debut as a playwright.
A Race That Could Tip the Balance of Power
Deadline's reporting frames the play's fictional North Carolina race as one with real-world echoes, describing it as a story about a North Carolina midterms race that may determine the balance of power in the nation. That framing lines up with the real beneficiaries of Sunday's event: proceeds will go to The States Project and The States Forum, two nonprofits that focus on governors and state legislature races, per the same outlet's reporting.
The States Forum says on its own site that it is building a network of thinkers and practitioners from across the country to develop policy solutions focused where they can go the furthest — in the states, according to The States Forum. Its sister organization, the States Project, frames the stakes in starker political terms, stating on its website that state legislatures are our strongest line of defense, per The States Project.
Tickets Range From $500 to $5,000
Getting into the room — wherever it turns out to be — won't be cheap. Tickets are split into Supporter, Guest and VIP tiers priced at $500, $1,000 and $5,000, the report notes. The top tier buys more than a seat: the $5,000 ticket includes VIP seating and an after-party with the cast and other patrons, according to Showbiz411.
For comparison, the site notes that another starry New York benefit, The 24 Hour Plays on Nov. 2, topped out at a $535 VIP ticket, with prices ranging down to $161. Sunday's Smear reading, by contrast, is pitched squarely at deep-pocketed donors rather than casual theatergoers.
Clooney's Record-Breaking Broadway Run
This isn't Clooney's first brush with the New York stage. He made his Broadway debut in the stage adaptation of Good Night, and Good Luck, according to Broadway.com, with performances ending on June 8, 2025. That production set box-office records during its run, per the article's facts, and the numbers back that up: the show grossed $4,003,482 for the week ending May 4, 2025, across eight performances — the highest weekly gross ever recorded by a Broadway play at that point, according to The New York Times.
The Hollywood Reporter later put that same week's haul at $4.245 million, breaking the show's own record for the highest weekly gross for a Broadway play. By comparison, Othello, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Denzel Washington, grossed $3.5 million that same week, while The Lion King and Glengarry Glen Ross each brought in just above $2 million despite playing eight and seven performances respectively, per the Hollywood Reporter's figures.
A Broadway Season Still Finding Its Footing
Clooney's star power landed during a season that was, by some measures, finally clawing back toward pre-pandemic form. Broadway's 2024–25 season had reached $1.801 billion in grosses, exceeding the $1.793 billion recorded at the same point in the 2018–19 season, the Times reported. Even so, attendance remained about 3 percent below its prepandemic peak, and rising production costs have pushed up financial failure rates while squeezing profitability, according to the same report.
Sunday's reading won't move those season-long numbers much on its own, but it arrives at a moment when Broadway's biggest names are increasingly leaning on star power for causes beyond the box office. For Clooney, it's a quieter, one-night echo of the record-setting run that first brought him to a New York stage — this time with the house, and the beneficiaries, kept deliberately out of the spotlight.
