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Brighton Beach Memoirs
by Neil Simon
Here is part one of Neil Simon’s autobiographical trilogy: a portrait of the writer as a Brooklyn teenager in 1937 living with his family in crowded, lower-middle-class circumstances. Eugene (the young Neil Simon) is the narrator and central character. His mind is full of fiercely fantasized dreams of baseball and dimly fantasized images of girls. The play captures a few days in the life of a struggling Jewish household that includes Eugene’s hard-working father, his sharp-tongued mother, his older and vastly more experienced brother Stanley, his widowed aunt and her two young daughters. As Eugene’s father says, “If you didn’t have a problem, you wouldn’t live in this house. It is a deeply appealing play that deftly mixes drama with comedy. “In many respects his funniest, richest and consequently the most affecting of his plays.”—N.Y. Daily News. “Simultaneously poignant and funny.”—Variety. “Hilarious comedy. . . A delightful and enriching experience.”—CBS-TV.
Parental Guide: This show contains a coarse adolescent discussion that might earn it a PG or PG-13 rating in the film world.
I Do! I Do! 
Book & Lyrics by Tom Jones
Music by Harvey Schmidt
The story of a marriage is at the center of this intimate and nostalgic work by Schmidt and Jones, the authors of The Fantasticks. The show begins with Michael and Agnes on their wedding day and traces their life together over a period of 50 years, until the day they leave their house to the next pair of newlyweds. In that time we watch them go through their wedding night jitters, raise a family, negotiate mid-life crises, quarrel, separate, reconcile and grow old together, all lovingly to the strains of a tuneful, charming score which includes the standard "My Cup Runneth Over."
Fools
by Neil Simon
Leon Tolchinsky is ecstatic. He’s landed a terrific job as a schoolteacher in the idyllic Russian hamlet of Kulyenchikov. When he arrives he finds people attempting to milk a cow upside down because they think it might produce more cream. The whole town, it seems has been cursed with chronic stupidity for a period of 200 years. The desperate townspeople have hired Leon in hopes that he might break the curse. The catch if that if he fails to do it within 24 hours, he will also become stupid. Why doesn’t Leon just leave? Of course, he has fallen in love with the beautiful girl from the town. Will Leon break the curse, run away, or just live with his love in blissful stupidity? This tongue-in-cheek fable is a departure from the standard Simon fare. “The brightest, freshest, funniest, wittiest, warmest and happiest to-do on Broadway in many a day.”—CBS-TV
See the Ticket Calendar for performance dates and times.
Photo Credits: (from left) 1) (from left): Martha Ann Hill as Cecily Pigeon, Richard Bugg as Felix Ungar, Debra Flink as Gwendolyn Pigeon in The Odd Couple (2003). 2) Sean Boyd as Paul, Martha Ann Hill as Corie in Barefoot in the Park (2003). 3) Valeen Ogzewalla as Mrs. Baker in Come Blow Your Horn (2004). 4) Kameron Lopez as Sophie in The Star-Spangled Girl (2004). 5) Matthew Nickerson in The Farley Family Reunion (2005). 6) Jan Broberg as Faye in Chapter Two (2005). 7) Bradford Garrison as Jay in Lost in Yonkers (2005).
Photos by James Orazem |
