Neil Simon: master comic craftsman and a Broadway titan for four decades

From his early years working for Sid Caesar, the gifted, prolific New Yorker became a Broadway institution

The last of Neil Simon’s 30 plays or musicals to open in America’s main theatre district was called 45 Seconds from Broadway (2001). It was a suitable climactic title. For the preceding four decades, Broadway theatregoers had rarely been more than a minute or so from a Simon play.

The first productions of his works achieved around 18,000 performances between them, making, at the usual rate of eight shows a week, a combined 44 Broadway years, a total further swollen by revivals of several hits. Given the decrease in the number of openings and increase in diversity of voices, it seems unlikely any dramatist will ever better Simon’s Broadway statistics.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2C0zW4j
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