AceShowbiz -

Al Pacino is set to return to Broadway next year. The 74-year-old actor is tapped to play the lead role in David Mamet's new play called "China Doll". Directed by Pam MacKinnon who won a Tony for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" revival last year, the show is scheduled for 2015 debut.

Mamet says he wrote the play specifically for Pacino. The Oscar winner will portray Mickey Ross, a billionaire planning on semi-retirement. "He's in the process of leaving his office, and is giving last minute instructions to his young assistant. He takes one last phone call," Mamet teases.

Back in 1983, Pacino appeared in Mamet's Broadway show "American Buffalo". He also starred in HBO's Phil Spector biopic written by the playwright. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at Academy Awards for his role in the adaptation of Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Glengarry Glen Ross" in 1992 and returned for the Broadway revival in 2012.

"It's a special gift to originate a role in the theater, especially written by such a formidable writer and I haven't done that in a long, long time," Pacino says of his latest collaboration with Mamet. Though they have done several projects together, "the opportunity to create a new character in the David Mamet canon was an opportunity I couldn't pass up," he gushes.