London Suite
by Neil Simon

August 24 - September 15, 2001
Directed by Rhonda Clark

Neil Simon is our best-known living playwright and has been loved by American audiences for over 30 years.

In "London Suite" (which opened Off-Broadway in 1994), he returns to the form of two of his earlier successes, "Plaza Suite" and "California Suite." It is a collection of four playlets set in the same suite of an old, fashionable hotel in London. In each story he sets a different tone, starting with a taut revue sketch, moving to a sentimental comedy, then to comedy-drama, and finally he tops it off with an unbridled farce. The audience can expect Simon's characteristic comic one-liners, freewheeling sight gags and a sudden ambush of poignancy.

Part of the fun of the piece is seeing a small group of actors portray all the various characters in the four different stories.

The first story, Settling Accounts, sports a man with a gun and a man with an attaché - a burned out writer and his once-trusted accountant who has cleaned him out.

In Going Home, an attractive American widow is shopping her way through London, while her adult daughter plays matchmaker.

In the poignant Diana & Sidney, the playwright revisits two characters from his earlier play "California Suite". The Oscar-winning actress Diana is in London promoting her hit TV series and rendezvous with her ex-husband, who has been living in Greece with his sculptor boyfriend.

The Man on the Floor is a knockabout farce that features American tourists on their way to Wimbledon, spastic backs and befuddled hotel employees.