Audience Guide
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Audience Guide By Neil Simon Directed by Daniel Ellis ©2016 Lyric Arts Main Street Stage • 420 East Main Street • Anoka, Minnesota 55303 Audience Guide for The Odd Couple ABOUT THE PLAY Lyric Arts 2015–2016 Season Synopsis This classic comedy opens with a group of friends assembled for a game of poker in the apart- ment of Oscar Madison, a divorced sportswriter. Late to arrive is their friend Felix Ungar, a neurotic, neat freak news-writer, who has just been separated from his wife. Fastidious and depressed, Felix seems suicidal, but as the action unfolds, Oscar becomes the one with murder on his mind when the clean-freak and the slob ultimately decide to room together with hilarious results as The Odd Couple is born. Production History The Odd Couple premiered on Broadway on March 10th, 1965 and transferred to the Eugene O’Neill Theatre where it closed on July 2nd, 1967 after 964 performances. Directed by Mike Nichols, the cast starred Walter Matthau as Oscar Madison and Art Carney as Felix Ungar. The production garnered four Tony Awards in the categories of Best Actor (Play), Best Author (Play), Best Direction of a Play, and Best Scenic Design, and was nominated for Overall Best Play. In 1985, Neil Simon revised The Odd Couple for a female cast. The Female Odd Couple was based on the same story line and same lead characters, now called Florence Ungar and Olive Madison, played by Sally Struthers and Rita Moreno, respectively. The poker game was updated to the popular 1980s game Trivial Pursuit, and their friends were gender swapped as well to Mickey, Sylvie, Vera, and Renee. The Pigeon sisters became the Costazuela brothers, Manolo and Jesus. The Female Odd Couple made its’ Broadway debut at the Broadhurst Theatre on June 11th, 1985, and closed on February 23rd, 1986 after 295 performances. Neil Simon sold film and TV rights for The Odd Couple to Paramount Pictures in 1967. Paramount has since produced two films and three TV series based upon the play. In 1968, The Odd Couple was made into a highly successful film starring Jack Lemmon as Felix and alterW Matthau reprising his role as Oscar. Most of the original script is the same, although the setting is expanded: instead of taking place entirely in Oscar’s apartment, some scenes take place at various outside locations. A sequel was made with the original actors in 1998. The success of the film was the basis for the original ABC television sitcom The Odd Couple. Broadcast from 1970-75, the series ran for 114 episodes and starred Tony Randall as Felix and Jack Klugman as Oscar. Klugman was familiar with the role as he had replaced Walter Matthau in the original Broadway run. Neil Simon originally disapproved of this adaptation, but by the series’ final season, he reassessed the show positively to the point of making a cameo appearance. In 1982, ABC aired a new version of the series, entitled The New Odd Couple. Produced by Garry Marshall, this revival saw diversity brought some much-needed diversity onto the small screen in the form of Ron Glass as Felix and Demond Wilson as Oscar. Unfortunately this new version was not original enough to find a wide audience and was canceled after just 13 episodes. The most recent adaptation of The Odd Couple was announced in December 2013. The comedy premiered on CBS on February 19th, 2015. Matthew Perry stars as Oscar while Thomas Lannon stars as Felix. With mixed to positive reviews and above-average network ratings, the series has recently been renewed for a third season. Page 2 of 10 Audience Guide for The Odd Couple ABOUT THE PLAY Lyric Arts 2015–2016 Season CHARACTERS OSCAR MADISON: A slovenly, recently divorced sportswriter with a large apartment. FELIX UNGAR: A fastidious, hypochondriac news writer whose marriage is ending. MURRAY: One of Oscar and Felix’s poker buddies, and an officer of the NYPD. ROY: One of Oscar and Felix’s poker buddies, and Oscar’s accountant. SPEED: One of Oscar and Felix’s poker buddies, noted for his gruff and sarcastic personality. VINNIE: One of Oscar and Felix’s poker buddies, a rather mild-mannered person. CECILY PIGEON: A divorcee sister to Gwendolyn, and one of Oscar & Felix’s upstairs neighbors from England. GWENDOLYN PIGEON: A widow sister to Cecily, and one of Oscar & Felix’s upstairs neighbors from England. SETTING The play is set in an apartment in Riverside Drive, New York in the 1960s. Page 3 of 10 Audience Guide for The Odd Couple ABOUT THE PLAY Lyric Arts 2015–2016 Season The Playwright NEIL SIMON (1927 - ), American playwright and screenwriter, is widely regarded as one of the most successful, prolific, and performed playwrights in the world. To date, Mr. Simon has received more Academy and Tony Award nominations than any other writer. His most famous plays and musicals include Sweet Charity, The Star-Spangled Girl, Plaza Suite, Prom- ises, Promises, The Good Doctor, California Suite, They’re Playing Our Song, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, The Odd Couple (female version), Rumors, The Goodbye Girl, The Dinner Party, and Laughter on the 23rd Floor. His screenplay credits include The Out-Of- Towners, The Heartbreak Kid, Murder by Death, The Cheap Detective, Sweet Charity and The Star- Spangled Girl. Simon grew up in New York during the Great Depression, with his parents’ financial hardships affecting their marriage, and giving him and his brother an unstable childhood. As a form of escapism, He often took refuge in movie theaters where he enjoyed watching the early comedians like Buster Keaton and Laurel and Hardy. After a few years in the Army Air Force Reserve after graduating from high school, he began writing comedy scripts for radio and early television shows. His earliest successes were working on The Phil Silvers Show and Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows, where he worked alongside other young writers including Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. Simon made his Broadway debut in 1961 with Come Blow Your Horn, which took him three years to complete and ran for 678 performances on Broadway. It was followed by two immediate successes, Barefoot in the Park (1963) and The Odd Couple (1965), for which he won a Tony Award. These plays made Neil Simon a national celebrity and “the hottest new playwright on Broadway.” Throughout the 1960s to the 1980s, he continued writing for both Broadway and Hollywood, with most films being based on his already-successful plays. His writing style showcased a wide range of genres, from romantic comedy and farce to more serious dramatic comedy. Overall, he has garnered seventeen Tony nominations and won three. For further proof of Simon’s magnitude, dur- ing one Broadway season, he had four successful plays showing at the same time, and in 1983 became the only living playwright to have a New York theatre, the Neil Simon Theatre, named in his honor. Page 4 of 10 Audience Guide for The Odd Couple ABOUT THE PLAY Lyric Arts 2015–2016 Season The Playwright With regard to places, all but two of Simon’s plays are set his hometown of New York, which gives them a decidedly unique urban flavor. Within that setting, Simon’s themes, besides marital conflict, sometimes include infidelity, sibling rivalry, adolescences, bereavement, and fear of aging. Despite the serious nature of the themes, Simon manages to tell these stories with humor, developing a literary style that includes both realism and comedy. As Simon would often tell aspiring comedy playwrights, “Try not to try to make it funny… try and make it real and then the comedy will come. I was almost always, with some exceptions, writing a drama that was funny. I wanted to tell a story about real people. My view is,’ how sad and funny life is’. I can’t think of a humorous situation that does not involve some pain. I used to ask, ‘What is a funny situation?’ Now I ask, ‘What is a sad situation and how can I tell it humorously?’” The Neil Simon Theatre, pictured above and formly the Alvin Theatre, is a Broadway venue built in 1927 and located at 250 West 52nd Street in midtown Manhattan. The theatre was renamed after the award- winning playwright in 1977 after the Nederlander Organization purchased the structure. Since then it has been the home to many notable productions including Anything Goes, Hairspray, All the Way, Big Fish, Hairspray, Catch Me If You Can and will be the home to the 2016 revival of Cats. Page 5 of 10 Audience Guide for The Odd Couple DESIGN CORNER Lyric Arts 2015–2016 Season Lyric Arts Set Design Scenic Design by Travis Collins Set Rendering for The Odd Couple Theatrical designers create rendering to help effectively communicate their visual idea for the set, costume or props to the production team. Ground Plan for The Odd Couple The ground plan is a plan for the set at ground level but imagined as if you were seeing it from above. 24 PALISADES OF BRIDGE 2 # Plan U CONDO TRASH 4' KITCHEN COUNTER PLATE Ground V FRIDGE T AC UNIT G STAGE W H S COLLINS SCONCE I LIGHT SWITCH Z Q 2 X 8 RUNNER RUG MASKING STREET TRAVIS BOOKCASE Y C X CURTIAN ARM - J AA F LIVE OUTLET CHAIR TOILET BOOKCASE MAIN L E OUTLET K COAT OUTLET STEREO SIDE RACK M DESIGN D CONSOLE TABLE R ARTS SHOWER CURTIAN RHEOSTAT SWITCH 6 X 4 DINNING ARM TABLE LYRIC 3 X 2 RUG CHAIR SCENIC B A LIGHT SWITCH CHANDELIER TABLE LAMP 12 X 8 RUG TABLE 7' CONSOLE LAMP Couple OUTLET 8' Sofa SIDE TABLE FLOOR 4 X 8 RUG Odd LAMP SIDE ARM TABLE CHAIR ARM COFFEE CHAIR SIDE TABLE The TABLE CL Page 6 of 10 Audience Guide for The Odd Couple HISTORICAL CONTEXT Lyric Arts 2015–2016 Season Welcome to the 60’s The sixties were a time of extreme upheaval.