It’s Opening Night of The Golden Egg on Broadway and the wealthy producer is throwing a lavish party in her Manhattan townhouse. Downstairs the celebrities are pouring in, but the real action is upstairs where a group of insiders have staked themselves out in the producer’s bedroom, waiting for the reviews to come in. Included are the excitable young author; the brilliant but unstable director; the pill-popping leading lady; and the playwright’s best friend, but not his star(!), an egotistical but insecure comic actor. Also present are a fawning, hypocritical drama critic; a would-be singer/actor/dancer/whatever working as a part-time servant; and a hard-boiled lady taxi driver who has seen it all.
The good nature with which the evening begins grows more caustic and funnier as the reviews (oh, boy…) come in, and those assembled seek desperately to pin the blame on each other. And that’s just Act I…!
A comedy by Terrence McNally, It’s Only a Play is directed by Catherine Andruskevich, with assistance by Rachel Jackson.