Tagged: Theater

Several years ago, when Nora Ephron handed Tom Hanks an early draft of Lucky Guy, her play about tabloid journalist Mike McAlary, he had a pretty strong reaction.

"I said, 'Well, that guy's sure a jerk!' I used another word besides jerk — I know what you can say on NPR," he says. "And she laughed and she said, 'Well, he kinda was. But he was kinda great, too.'"

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning, I'm Renee Montagne.

Last night was opening night for the Broadway show "Breakfast at Tiffany's," but The New York Times reports it was also curtains for one of the actors. Montie Corelli was fired. He had been the main understudy for Vito Vincent in the role of a cat. The black-and-white feline apparently refused to follow stage directions. But hey, he's a cat. And likely the casting process to replace Monti was a lot like herding cats.

It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

How we end up in life has a lot to do with where we came from. That theory gets a good workout in the play Good People, from Pulitzer Prize-winner David Lindsay-Abaire. When the show was on Broadway two years ago, the trade magazine Variety proclaimed that "If Good People isn't a hit, there is no justice in the land."

As it turns out, justice has been served: Good People is the most produced play in America this theatrical season. By the end of this summer, it will have been on stage in 17 different cities.