THEATRE + COMEDY

Theatre Southwest presents Plaza Suite, by Neil Simon.  Directed by David Holloway.  New Year's Gala, December 31.  Running through January 22.

A trio of one-acts about midlife couples who check in to the luxurious Plaza hotel in search of their past, present, and future. A classic Neil Simon cocktail of marital heartburn and hilarity, perfect for New Year’s Eve enjoyment.

Hilarity abounds in this portrait of three couples successively occupying a suite at the Plaza. A suburban couple take the suite while their house is being painted and it turns out to be the one in which they honeymooned 23 (or was it 24?) years before and was yesterday the anniversary, or is it today?

This wry tale of marriage in tatters is followed by the exploits of a Hollywood producer who, after three marriages, is looking for fresh fields. He calls a childhood sweetheart, now a suburban housewife, for a little sexual diversion. Over the years she has idolized him from afar and is now more than the match he bargained for.

The last couple is a mother and father fighting about the best way to get their daughter out of the bathroom and down to the ballroom where guests await her or as Mother yells, "I want you to come out of that bathroom and get married!"

"Wonderfully funny...The blockbuster (3rd playlet) is the wildest and most uproarious farce I have seen on a stage."-New York Daily News

"Set the town laughing."-The New York Times

"A wonderfully happy and gratifying evening of sheer entertainment... Richly funny." -New York Post

With:  Casey Coale, Suzanne King, Scott Holmes, Vicky McCormick, Lisa Schofield, Bob Maddox,  Aneela Qureshi, Danny Uddin, Chris Stafford,  David Bradley.

Neil Simon (Playwright), In his prolific oeuvre, Simon has made a sub-speciality of the one-act “hotel room” play, starting with Plaza Suite. Originally directed by Mike Nichols, it opened on Broadway on Valentine’s Day 1968, with George C. Scott playing all the men and Maureen Stapleton playing all the women. Director Nichols won a Tony Award; Simon and Stapleton were both nominated as well. Reportedly, Simon was unhappy with the 1971 film adaptation, that having the same actor play all three parts didn’t work as well on the screen. Then in 1987, Carol Burnett produced a television Plaza Suite wherein she portrayed all three female roles opposite, respectively, Hal Holbrook (Sam Nash), Dabney Coleman (Jesse Kiplinger), and Richard Crenna (Roy Hubley). Meanwhile, Simon went on to explore his formula further in California Suite and London Suite.

David Holloway (Director) made his first appearance at TSW in 1973 in Teahouse of the August Moon. The list of plays he has directed includes California Suite, Tobacco Road, Charley's Aunt, The Rainmaker, Accomplice, Forty Carats, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, Catholic School Girls, The House of Blue Leaves, A Few Good Men, Mary, Mary, Lu Ann Hampton Laveerty Oberlander, Line, and Wonder of the World, plus several productions in the Festival of Originals.

As an actor, David has appeared here in A Doll's House, Lovers and Other Strangers, Harvey, The Lion in Winter, Don't Just Lie There, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, On Golden Pond, California Suite, Faustrop, Gingerbread Lady, When Ya Comin' Back, Red Ryder?, The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wilde, Woman in Mind, Wrong Turn at Lungfish, George Washington Slept Here, Angel Street, Never Too Late, To Kill a Mockingbird, Twelve Angry Men, The Wayside Motor Inn, roles in several Festivals of Originals, and most recently, Other People’s Money.

Elsewhere around Houston, he has also been seen in Equus, The Enclave, Raft of the Medusa, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Glengarry Glen Ross, and the Houston Shakespeare Festival.

Theatre Southwest is supported in part by grants from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance and from the Houston Endowment.