By Ernio Hernandez
12 Nov 2009

Dominic Fumusa with Edie Falco; Eve Best; and Anna Deavere Smith
photo by Ken Regan/Showtime

Broadway star Edie Falco will return to television screens March 22, 2010, in the second season premiere of the Showtime series "Nurse Jackie." Fellow stage veterans Eve Best and Anna Deavere Smith will also return.

Executive producers Linda Wallem and Liz Brixius created (with Evan Dunsky) the half-hour single-camera dark comedy. A Showtime spokesperson confirmed the start date and returning stars.

Falco stars as the title character Jackie O'Hurley, billed as "a strong-willed and brilliant — but very flawed — emergency room nurse in a complicated New York City hospital. A lapsed Catholic with an occasional weakness for Vicodin and Adderall to get her through the days, Jackie keeps the hospital balanced with her own kind of justice. Every day is a high wire act of juggling patients, doctors, fellow nurses and her own indiscretions."

The first season saw guest turns from such stage names as Blythe Danner, Judith Ivey, Swoosie Kurtz and Elizabeth Marvel among others. Scott Ellis (Curtains) directed a couple episodes.

Falco has appeared on Broadway in Frankie & Johnnie in the Clair de Lune, 'night, Mother and Side Man. Best earned Tony Award nominations for her turns in The Homecoming and A Moon for the Misbegotten. Smith is known for her solo work Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 and currently appears Off-Broadway in Let Me Down Easy.

For more information, visit sho.com/nursejackie.