On Neil Simon

Reading up on Neil Simon has given me insight not only into the man, but into the era of American Comedy that we're entering in performing this play. I hope you find these research notes as helpful as I do.

Simon took a job in the Warner Brothers Manhattan office mailroom in the 1950s. After several years in this position, he quit Warner Brothers to begin writing with his brother, Danny Simon, on a full-time basis. The brothers wrote radio and television scripts for shows including the Sid Caesar series Your Show of Shows. The writing staff of this series included Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and Carl Reiner.  -Biography.com 

Your Show of Shows, a groundbreaking variety show, congregated some of the brightest young comedic writers, many of whom would help define the genre in the coming decades. It appears that types of shows appear in each generation; In Living Color and Saturday Night Live's contributors had a similar effect on their media as well.

Though none of his plays can be considered strictly autobiographical, Neil Simon never hesitated to draw from his own life for writing material. Knowing this, I think it's important to know a bit about the man's life to provide a frame of reference. He witnessed the divorce of his parents as a child, then experienced it first-hand in 1983.

While not entirely autobiographical, Simon makes no secret about using personal experiences or those of his friends for material. Come Blow Your Horn was about two brothers who moved away home and shared a bachelor apartment (just as Simon and his brother did);Barefoot in the Park was the story of newlyweds adjusting to married life (reminiscent of his own marriage); and, of The Odd Couple Simon once commented, "[the story] happened to two guys I know-I couldn't write a play about Welsh miners." -Encyclopedia.com