The Play

Laughter on the 23rd Floor by Neil Simon

The Director

Michele Shapero

The Story

Television comedians appear to be funny. But the real humor comes from the guys (and gals) in the writers’ room, a collection of dissatisfied, disgruntled, dyspeptic lunatics who just can’t help but find humor in the strangest places. Neil Simon began his career as a writer on network TV for one of America’s legendary comedians. And in this thinly disguised memoir of that experience, he lets us in on the inner workings of television humor. Sometimes humorous. Sometimes crazy. But always entertaining. Meet some of the characters:

The Cast

Lucas Brickman (Bryan Zipp): A pseudonym for Neil Simon himself. Young, new, observant, and eager to earn his place as one of the comedy team.
Milt Fields (Scott Roskam): Middle aged and eccentric, intent on shock and surprise, he's likely to show up at the studio in a cape and top hat.
Val Skolsky (David Vale): A Russian immigrant with a thick accent. Although he’s the senior writer, he’s somewhat separated from the rest of the team by his accent, an accent that makes Twentieth Century Fox sound like profanity.
Brian Doyle (Duane Herriges): A hard-drinking, chain smoking Irishman who’s just biding his time with the network while he sells a script to Hollywood, a script he has yet to write.
Kenny Franks (John Beaubien): Sophisticated of dress and action. Otherwise a mystery.
Carol Wyman (Meghan Sistok): The only woman on the writing team. She didn’t really set out to be one of the guys, but now that she drinks, walks, talks, and yes curses like one of the guys, well …
Max Prince (John Goroski): The star of the show. Should probably have been named Max King. Known for putting walls in their place.
Ira Stone (L.E. Kalstein): Likely to die young, if only in his imagination. Wildly hypochondriac, but willing to laugh at death.
Helen (Stephanie Brost): Max’s secretary. Would really like to be funny, but has to settle for being attractive.

Performances

Friday, October 14, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 15, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, October 16, 2:00 p.m.
Friday, October 21, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 22, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, October 23, 2:00 p.m.

Warning

This play makes good use of bad language.