The New York Magazine looks at the legacy of writer Neil Simon, who wrote the book for the FAC's current production of Broadway Bound.
"Bashing Neil Simon has been almost de rigueur for highbrow critics since the playwright had his first hits in the early sixties. But now that he’s 82 and in iffy health, and a major revival of two of his most celebrated works—the first and third parts of the Brighton Beach trilogy, Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound—is about to open, it’s hard not to feel nostalgic for the popular theater he once dominated. For better and worse, Simon’s plays—in their complacency, insularity, and, yes, hilarity—connected with their audience on a level that theater almost never does anymore.
"Simon’s wisecrack-laden comedies made him, by many estimates, the most commercially successful playwright of all time. For a quarter-century, you could count on one of his 30-plus plays or musicals to be packing ’em in on Broadway ... "
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