Emmy winner Jeff Hiller is heading back to the New York stage in The Exhibitionist, a solo comedy by James Hindman that gets nine performances only at SoHo Playhouse between November 9 and 21.
Directed by Andrew Russell, the 65-minute play casts Hiller as Justin, the oldest and most charming intern at the fictional McMillon Museum of Art. He is supposed to be steering visitors toward a newly discovered painting by Vincent Van Gogh, but his mind is one floor below, where his own work is being judged in a competition that could finally launch the career he has always wanted. He is not holding up well.
Underneath the jokes, Hindman is writing about the fear of going unnoticed and the nerve it takes to keep making work anyway: how far an artist will go to prove what they are worth, and how success gets measured. The piece has already won Theatre Aspen’s Solo Flights Grant Award.
“I could not be more thrilled to be returning to the stage this fall with The Exhibitionist, a play that so beautifully represents exactly what it is to be an artist,” Hiller said, calling SoHo Playhouse “a venue near and dear to my heart.”
Hiller won the 2025 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance as Joel opposite Bridget Everett in HBO’s Somebody Somewhere. His television work also takes in Widow’s Bay, Elsbeth, Pluribus, which brought him a further Emmy nomination, and 30 Rock, and his Broadway credits include Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. A longtime presence on the city’s comedy scene, he performed and taught improv for years at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, and his memoir, Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success, is out now from Simon & Schuster.
For Hindman, an actor as well as a playwright, this is a return to the one-person form. His solo show What Doesn’t Kill You extended at 59E59 Theaters and was later performed in French in Paris and at the Avignon Festival, and his musical Pete ’n’ Keely picked up an Outer Critics Circle nomination and two Drama Desk nominations. Russell, a former producing artistic director of Seattle’s Intiman Theatre, won the 2025 Write It Out! Prize for his play My Maria.
The design team is Christopher Ford (scenic and costume design), Kate McGee (lighting) and Peter Mills Weiss (sound). Occasional Drawl, the producing company led by Brian Letchworth and Christa Scott-Reed, presents the run in association with Whitley Theatrical.
SoHo Playhouse is at 15 Vandam Street. Performances are Monday, November 9 at 9 p.m.; Tuesday, November 10 at 7 p.m.; Friday, November 13 and Saturday, November 14 at 9 p.m.; Sunday, November 15 at 5 p.m.; Tuesday, November 17 at 7 p.m.; and Thursday, November 19, Friday, November 20 and Saturday, November 21, all at 9 p.m. Tickets are on sale now through the production’s website, ExhibitionistPlay.com.
