Pigs Eye Theatre - Laughter on the 23rd Floor

Laughter on the 23rd Floor By Neil Simon	Directed by Zach Curtis
Mar. 14 - 30, 2002 at Cedar Riverside People's Center	featuring: Alex Cole Mikki Daniels Randall J. Funk Ari Hoptman Bob Malos Tim Perfect David Pust Stacia Rice Edwin Strout Stage Manager: Rebecca Van Eaton
Set in 1953, Neil Simon's play re-creates the mayhem, neuroses, nonstop gags, and constant one-upmanship of a team of brilliantly funny social misfits as they write "The Max Prince Show", a weekly variety program. Among the crew are Milt, the insult artist; Ira, the hypochondriac whose dream is to have a virus named after him; and Val, a Russian emigrant‚ who takes a Berlitz course so he can curse without an accent. They are devoted to their boss, Max, a comic genius, a tyrant, and a paranoiac with a heart of gold. But his penchant for tippling and popping too many pills is growing under the pressures of a rising McCarthyism, network executives, and sponsors who want him to cut back his "too-smart" show and staff so that they can chase after the "Leave It to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" audience.
Reviews: Dominic Papatola, St. Paul Pioneer Press - 03/16/2002 "Edwin Strout shows a knack for physical comedy as comedy genius Max Prince. Randall J. Funk brings a sardonic edge to the role of Brian Doyle, the only gentile on the writing staff...Stacia [Rice]'s Carol Wyman more than holds her own in this man's world...Tim Perfect brings a much-needed quiet sanity as Kenny Franks...Ari Hoptman plays Ira Stone, Simon's stand-in for Mel Brooks, with undisguised relish. Hoptman doesn't squander the opportunity in a Semitic smash of a performance. He fills the role with vigor and far and away the best ear for the cadence of how these characters speak, perching himself on death's door with some imagined ailment one moment, spitting out scathingly funny insults the next.
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