Tom Hanks to make his Broadway debut next year in Norah Ephron’s ‘Lucky Guy’

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Tom Hanks will play a New York City newspaper columnist when he makes his debut on Broadway in the spring.

Producers of Nora Ephron’s play “Lucky Guy” announced Thursday that Hanks will play Mike McAlary in the stage biography. Hanks, a two-time Oscar winner, had been in negotiations for the role when Ephron died this summer.

Previews begin March 1 at the Broadhurst Theatre and an opening night is set for April 1.

McAlary, the city’s one-time dominant tabloid reporter, got the first interview with Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant who was sodomized and beaten by white police officers at a station house in 1997. McAlary would win the Pulitzer Prize the next year but would die of cancer a few months later at age 41.

The director of “Lucky Guy” will be George C. Wolfe.

Hanks is the star of such films as “Splash,” ”Forrest Gump,” “Philadelphia,” ”Sleepless in Seattle,” ”Apollo 13″ and “Saving Private Ryan.”

McAlary has already been the subject of a play — Dan Klores’ “The Wood,” which opened off-Broadway at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre last year.