AKIE BERMISS: There was a time in Junior High that I fancied myself an aspiring playwright. I entered contests, wrote little skits for class, and I surrounded myself with the work of the great American playwrights . The two people at the top of my list? August Wilson — for his ability to combine the mundane and the mystical — and Neil Simon. I adored his writing: Sweet Charity, Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, and The Out-of-Towners. And, of course, Brighton Beach Memoirs.
HOWARD MEGDAL: My particular ire is less on behalf of the theatre community over seeing Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs close in just a week, and more over the conclusions drawn by Patrick Healy in his New York Times analysis of the reasons for the closing.
MOLLY SCHOEMANN: Brighton Beach Memoirs, if I can’t buy a lunchbox with a picture of your cast on it, you’re wasting my time even more.