The Prisoner of Second Avenue - Softcover

Simon, Neil

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0573614296 ISBN 13: 9780573614293

Publisher: Samuel French, Inc., 2010

Synopsis

Comedy / Characters: 2 males, 4 females

Scenery: Interior

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 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...

"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

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Neil Simon takes a good look at apartment life, career and role reversals, a nervous breakdown, and the love, torture, care, or inertia that somehow keeps a couple in a relationship for many years. At points, it's laugh-out-loud funny; at other times, it offers sensitive insight into the human condition. Fast-moving dialog with nonstop Simon quips and jokes performed extremely well by two fine actors: who could ask for more? This is classic American comedy produced, acted, recorded, and packaged in an exemplary manner.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Annie Abbott, Lorin Dreyfuss, Richard Dreyfuss, Betty Garrett, Sharon Madden and Marsha Mason.

About the Author:

America's most prolific and beloved playwright, Neil Simon is the author of more than two dozen plays and screenplays. In 1990, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He is also the winner of three Tony Awards. Simon splits his time between New York and Los Angeles.

About this edition

• Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0573614296
• ISBN 13: 9780573614293
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 90