Responding to Monday's Boston Marathon bombing, Tony-winning playwright Richard Greenberg made a few last-minute edits to his newest play, The Assembled Parties, before its Broadway opening on Wednesday.
In the Manhattan Theatre Club production, Greenberg altered specific moments in the drama, including a reference to building a bomb, as well as referring to the city of Boston, herself.
Greenberg's original, Act I dialogue has no final bearing on the plot of The Assembled Parties, but the offending lines were excised nonetheless before premiere night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater.
The Assembled Parties had been in previews since March 21.
"All of us involved in the production of The Assembled Parties were saddened by Monday's tragedy in Boston and have deep compassion for all who were affected," said Lynne Meadow, artistic director of the Manhattan Theatre Club. "In response to that event, [Greenberg] chose to cut one line from his play. He also chose to rewrite a brief description of an off-stage character who, as a college student in 1980, attempted to build a bomb."
Directed by Meadow, The Assembled Parties revolves around the Bascovs--a Jewish family from the Upper West Side. Set in the years 1980 and 2000, inside a large Central Park West apartment, former movie star Julie Bascov (Jessica Hecht) and her sister-in-law Faye (Judith Light) bring their families together for holiday dinner. Once a new houseguest inserts himself into the family's business, though, the seemingly perfect Bascov way of life threatens to crumble.
In Greenberg's unedited version of the play, Jeff, a college chum of one of the Bascov boys (played by Jeremy Shamos), is asked how he likes Boston.
"There is something wrong with Boston, isn't there? But Cambridge is fun," Jeff replies.
Later in the opening act, Jeff mentions a student who attempted to build a bomb as an extra-credit assignment.
The Assembled Parties, the eighth Richard Greenberg play produced by Manhattan Theater Club, runs through June 2. Thus far, the reviews have been pretty good.
Greenberg won a 2003 Tony for Take Me Out, a drama about a professional baseball player that comes out of the closet. He also wrote the current Broadway adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's, as well as the forthcoming off-Broadway musical, Far From Heaven.
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