The Good Doctor (play)

Last updated

The Good Doctor is a comedy with music written by Neil Simon. It consists of a series of short plays, based on short stories and other works of Russian writer Anton Chekhov, framed by a writer making comments on them.

Contents

Productions

The Good Doctor opened on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on November 27, 1973, and closed on May 25, 1974, after 208 performances and eight previews. Produced by Emanuel Azenberg and directed by A.J. Antoon, it starred René Auberjonois, Barnard Hughes, Marsha Mason, Christopher Plummer, and Frances Sternhagen. [1]

Frances Sternhagen won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play, [2] and the play received three additional Tony Award nominations: Best Original Score (Peter Link and Neil Simon), Best Featured Actor in a Play (René Auberjonois), and Best Lighting Design (Tharon Musser). [3] Clive Barnes wrote in The New York Times that "There is much fun here-or at least here and there. It is, however, too anecdotal, with most stories closing with the dramatic ring of a punch-line. Mr. Simon's comic fancy is admirable." [1]

Simon met his second wife, Marsha Mason during auditions for this play. [4]

A revival was produced by The Melting Pot Theater, at the Theater of the Riverside Church, New York City, from February 1998 through March 1, 1998, with Andre De Shields, Jane Connell, and Gordon Connell. [5]

A television movie was made based on the play, with Edward Asner, Richard Chamberlain, and Marsha Mason. It premiered on PBS' Great Performances on November 8, 1978. [6] Reviewer John O'Connor wrote, "Mr. Simon also includes a special piece for his wife, Marsha Mason, in which the appealing actress gets to play each of The Three Sisters ... . A press release notes that it is difficult to tell where Chekov stops and Simon begins. That's part of the problem ... . The result falls awkwardly between gentle Chekhovian satire and clever Simon wisecracks. Neither writer is served to advantage." [7]

Plot overview

An unnamed writer (obviously meant to represent Chekhov himself) suffers from writer's block and his own artistic temperament as he narrates to the audience several of his stories:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neil Simon</span> American playwright, writer, and academic (1927–2018)

Marvin Neil Simon was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He has received three Tony Awards, and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for four Academy Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards. He was awarded a Special Tony Award in 1975, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1995 and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Nichols</span> American director, producer and actor (1931–2014)

Mike Nichols was an American film and theater director, producer, actor, and comedian. He worked across a range of genres and had an aptitude for getting the best out of actors regardless of their experience. He is one of 18 people to have won all four of the major American entertainment awards: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT). His other honors included three BAFTA Awards, the Lincoln Center Gala Tribute in 1999, the National Medal of Arts in 2001, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2003 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2010. His films received a total of 42 Academy Award nominations, and 7 wins.

<i>The Goodbye Girl</i> 1977 film directed by Herbert Ross

The Goodbye Girl is a 1977 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Herbert Ross, written by Neil Simon and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings and Paul Benedict. The film, produced by Ray Stark, centers on an odd trio of characters: a struggling actor who has sublet a Manhattan apartment from a friend, the current occupant, and her precocious young daughter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marsha Mason</span> American actress

Marsha Mason is an American actress and director. She has been nominated four times for the Academy Award for Best Actress: for her performances in Cinderella Liberty (1973), The Goodbye Girl (1977), Chapter Two (1979), and Only When I Laugh (1981). The first two films also won her Golden Globe Awards. She was married for ten years (1973–1983) to the playwright and screenwriter Neil Simon, who was the writer of three of her four Oscar-nominated roles.

<i>Chapter Two</i> (play)

Chapter Two is a semi-autobiographical play by Neil Simon. The play premiered on Broadway in 1977, where it ran for 857 performances.

<i>Only When I Laugh</i> (film) 1981 film by Glenn Jordan

Only When I Laugh is a 1981 American comedy-drama film based on Neil Simon's 1970 play The Gingerbread Lady.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">René Auberjonois</span> American actor and director (1940–2019)

René Murat Auberjonois was an American actor and director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phylicia Rashad</span> American actress (born 1948)

Phylicia Rashad is an American actress. She is dean of the College of Fine Arts at Howard University and best known for her role as Clair Huxtable on the sitcom The Cosby Show (1984–1992) which earned her Emmy Award nominations in 1985 and 1986. She also played Ruth Lucas on Cosby (1996–2000). She was dubbed "The Mother of the Black Community" at the 2010 NAACP Image Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sophie Okonedo</span> English actress (born 1968)

Sophie Okonedo is an English actress and narrator. Okonedo was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2019, both for services to drama. The recipient of a Tony Award, she has been nominated for an Academy Award, three BAFTA TV Award, Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frances Sternhagen</span> American actress (born 1930)

Frances Sternhagen is an American actress; she has appeared on- and off-Broadway, in movies, and on TV since the 1950s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">L. Scott Caldwell</span> American actress

L. Scott Caldwell is an American actress perhaps best known for her roles as Deputy U.S. Marshall Erin Poole in The Fugitive (1993) and Rose on the television series Lost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play</span> Award

The Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play is an honor presented at the Tony Awards, a ceremony established in 1947 as the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, to actresses for quality supporting roles in a Broadway play. The awards are named after Antoinette Perry, an American actress who died in 1946. Honors in several categories are presented at the ceremony annually by the Tony Award Productions, a joint venture of The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing, to "honor the best performances and stage productions of the previous year."

The Gingerbread Lady is a play by Neil Simon. It was widely believed to have been written specifically for actress Maureen Stapleton, who won both the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for her performance. But in a later autobiography, Simon wrote that he'd feared Stapleton might be "hurt" if she assumed the character's flaws and personal damage were a direct dramatization of her life. Simon said that it was director Mike Nichols' suggestion to cast Stapleton in the role, and that Simon responded, "This is not really Maureen. It's ten, twenty different actresses I've met over the years."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MCC Theater</span> American theater company

MCC Theater is an off-Broadway theater company located in New York City. The theater was founded in 1986 by artistic directors Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey and William Cantler. Blake West joined the company in 2006 as executive director. MCC opened the doors to its new home in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, as The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, on January 9, 2019.

David Binder is a Tony Award-winning Broadway, off-Broadway, and West End theater producer and artistic director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claudia McNeil</span> American actress

Claudia McNeil was an American actress known for premiering the role of matriarch Lena Younger in both the stage and screen productions of A Raisin in the Sun.

The Heiress is a 1947 play by American playwrights Ruth and Augustus Goetz adapted from the 1880 Henry James novel Washington Square. Two years later, the play was adapted into the film The Heiress starring Olivia de Havilland.

<i>A Raisin in the Sun</i> 1959 play by Lorraine Hansberry

A Raisin in the Sun is a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. The title comes from the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes. The story tells of a black family's experiences in south Chicago, as they attempt to improve their financial circumstances with an insurance payout following the death of the father, and deals with matters of housing discrimination, racism, and assimilation. The New York Drama Critics' Circle named it the best play of 1959, and in recent years publications such as The Independent and Time Out have listed it among the best plays ever written.

Peter Link is an American composer, lyricist, music producer, stage director, and presently CEO/Creative Director of Watchfire Music, an on-line Inspirational record company and music store.

<i>Chapter Two</i> (film) 1979 film by Robert Moore

Chapter Two is a 1979 American Metrocolor romantic comedy-drama film directed by Robert Moore, produced by Ray Stark, and based on Neil Simon's 1977 Broadway play of the same name. It has a 124-minute running time. It stars James Caan and Marsha Mason, in an Academy Award-nominated performance.

References

  1. 1 2 Barnes, Clive. "Review:The Good Doctor", The New York Times November 28, 1973, p. 36
  2. ↑ Weisman, Steven R. "'River Niger' and 'Raisin' Win Tonys", The New York Times, April 22, 1974, p. 46
  3. ↑ Calta, Louis. "'Raisin' (9) Leads Tony Nominee List", The New York Times, March 28, 1974, p. 31
  4. ↑ Simon, Neil. Chapters 8-9 The Play Goes On: A Memoir (1999), (books.google.com), Simon and Schuster, ISBN   0-684-84691-8
  5. ↑ Gates, Anita. "Theater Review; Neil Simon in Chekhov's Orchard The New York Times, February 11, 1998
  6. ↑ The Good Doctor IMDB
  7. ↑ O'Connor, John J. "TV: 'Cry' or Laugh With Simon", The New York Times, November 8, 1978, p. C26
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.