A SAMUEL FRENCH, INC. TITLE

The Prisoner of Second Avenue

Full-Length Play, Comedy  /  4w, 2m

"A gift for taking a grave subject and, without losing sight of its basic seriousness, treating it with hearty but sympathetic humor...A talent for writing a wonderful funny line...full of humor and intelligence. Fine fun." - New York Post

The Prisoner of Second Avenue

  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    4w, 2m

Details

Summary
Mel Edison is a well-paid executive of a high-end Manhattan firm, which has suddenly hit the skids, and he gets the ax. His wife Edna takes a job to tide them over, then she too is sacked. Compounded by the air-pollution killing his plants, and with the walls of the apartment being paper-thin, allowing him a constant earfull of his neighbors private lives, things can't seem to get any worse...Then he's robbed, and his psychiatrist dies with $23,000 of his money. Mel does the only thing left for him to do-he has a nervous breakdown and it's the best thing that ever happened to him...
  • Cautions
    • Alcohol

Media

"A gift for taking a grave subject and, without losing sight of its basic seriousness, treating it with hearty but sympathetic humor...A talent for writing a wonderful funny line...full of humor and intelligence. Fine fun." - New York Post

"Creates an atmosphere of casual cataclysm, an everyday urban purgatory of copelessness from which laughter seems to be released like vapor from the city's manholes." - Time

Licensing & Materials

  • Minimum Fee: $130 per performance

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Authors

Neil Simon

American playwright and screenwriter Neil Simon (1927-2018) is widely regarded as one of the most successful, prolific and performed playwrights in theatre history. In addition to Lost In Yonkers, which won a Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize, his plays and musicals include Come ...

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