Neil Simon

Neil Simon is an award winning playwright and screenwriter whose writing career has spanned more than five decades. Born Marvin Neil Simon on July 4, 1927, Simon’s works include plays such as The Goodbye Girl, Barefoot in the Park, Lost in Yonkers, and his autobiographical Brighton Beach Memoirs.http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc43.html

The recipient of numerous awards, Simon has won five Tony awards and a Pulitzer Prize for Lost in Yonkers.https://www.msu.edu/~pelowsk1/neilsimon/honors.html The Neil Simon Theater in New York was renamed in honor of him in 1983.http://neilsimontheatre.com/about.php A Neil Simon Festival plays every summer in the town of Cedar City, Utah, which is also the home of the annual Utah Shakespearean Festival.http://www.simonfest.org/

After attending both New York University and the University of Denver, Simon joined the army and began his writing career as a journalist for the newspaper at his army camp.http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc43.html Upon returning, he and his brother, Danny, began writing comedy revues, working in radio and television, and eventually, both signed on to write for the weekly variety television show, Your Show of Shows. Fellow writing alumni at the show included Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and Larry Gelbart.http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc43.html http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/artists/?entity_id=3523&source_type=A

Simon’s stage debut occurred in 1961 when his play, Come Blow Your Horn, opened on Broadway. The play went on to run for 677 performances. His follow up, Barefoot in the Park, which premiered two years later, was also successful. Since that time, Simon has gone on to write a total of 28 plays, and his original movie screenplays number nearly one dozen. Simon has written more hit plays than any other American playwright and holds the record for the number of plays adapted into movies.http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/artists/?entity_id=3523&source_type=A

• “Don't listen to those who say, you taking too big a chance. Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out by today. Most important, don't listen when the little voice of fear inside you rears its ugly head and says. they all smarter than you out there. They're more talented, they're taller, blonder, prettier, luckier, and they have connections. I firmly believe that if you follow a path that interests you, not to the exclusion of love, sensitivity, and cooperation with others, but with the strength of conviction that you can move others by your own efforts, and do not make success or failure the criteria by which you live, the chances are you'll be a person worthy of your own respects.”

• “If you can go through life without experiencing pain you probably haven't been born yet.”

• “He's too nervous to kill himself. He wears his seat belt in a drive-in movie.”

• “Everyone thinks they can write a play; you just write down what happened to you. But the art of it is drawing from all the moments of your life.”

• “I love living. I have some problems with my life, but living is the best thing they've come up with so far.”http://thinkexist.com/quotes/neil_simon/

• Come Blow Your Horn
• Barefoot in the Park
• The Odd Couple
• Sweet Charity
• The Star Spangled Girl
• Plaza Suite
• Promises, Promises
• Last of the Red Hot Lovers
• The Gingerbread Lady
• Prisoner of Second Avenue
• The Sunshine Boys
• The Good Doctor
• God's Favorite
• California Suite
• Chapter Two
• They're Playing Our Song
• I Ought to Be in Pictures
• Fools
• Brighton Beach Memoirs
• Biloxi Blues
• Broadway Bound
• Jake's Women
• Rumors
• Lost in Yonkers
• Laughter on the 23rd Floor
• London Suite
• Proposals
• Hotel Suite
• The Dinner Party
• 45 Seconds from Broadway
• Oscar and Felix
• Rose's Dilemmahttps://www.msu.edu/~pelowsk1/neilsimon/plays/