Julia Roberts Returns to Broadway After 20 Years in 'Small Mouth Sounds,' a Play With Almost No Dialogue

Julia Roberts is the most-searched name in the United States on Wednesday — her 59th birthday — days after she broke her silence on the stage return that has entertainment audiences talking: next spring she will star on Broadway for the first time in 20 years, in a play in which she will barely speak at all.

Roberts will headline a new production of Bess Wohl's 'Small Mouth Sounds,' an acclaimed comedy about six strangers at a silent retreat, where almost the entire story unfolds without dialogue and is told through movement, facial expressions and physical interaction, PEOPLE reported. She plays Joan. The cast around her is star-studded: Paul Rudd as Ned, Sarah Paulson as Judy, Martin Freeman as Jan, Greta Lee as Alicia and Isaac Powell as Rodney.

"I could not be any more excited to reunite with Joe Mantello on this beautiful piece by Bess Wohl," Roberts said in a statement released Friday, October 23. "And my cast mates!! Total joy!" Mantello, a three-time Tony Award winner, directed her Broadway debut in 2006's 'Three Days of Rain,' which also co-starred Rudd — making the new production a reunion two decades in the making. Rudd said working on "such a unique and beautiful play" with this cast and Mantello "is a dream."

'Small Mouth Sounds' premiered Off-Broadway at Ars Nova in 2015, earning acclaim and multiple extensions. The Broadway production begins previews on February 10, 2027, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, ahead of an official opening on March 11, and tickets went on sale to the general public on Sunday, October 25. In the play, six strangers arrive at an upstate spiritual retreat hoping to escape their problems and transform their lives — and, as tensions rise and personalities clash, their attempts at self-discovery do not go according to plan.