About the Play:

Conversations with My Father has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Male Monologues.

Conversations with My Father is a full-length comedy by Herb Gardner. Novelist Charlie remembers his relationship with his father, Eddie, a Jewish man who aggressively tried to assimilate into America as a bartender but remained haunted by his past.

Conversations with My Father is a powerful, moving and funny chronicle of four decades of American life, seen through the eyes of three generations of a Jewish immigrant family, learning the complicated lessons of adopting and adapting to a new country and culture on the Lower East Side in New York City. Incorporating autobiographical elements, Eddie Goldberg's story dramatizes what it's like to melt as well as simmer in American society while it encompasses the universals of relations between fathers and sons. From the award winning author of I'm Not Rappaport and A Thousand Clowns, this award-winning play examines the reality and contradictions of the American Dream.

Conversations with My Father premiered in 1991 at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. It had long run on Broadway in 1992 at the Royale Theatre in New York City and was a Finalist for 1992 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

Cast: 2 female, 9 male, 2 boys

What people say:

"A brave, uncompromising feat." — The New York Times

"A sweeping and anguished epic with jolts of aching laughter." — New York Magazine

"Funny and moving, poetic and tough ... It's wonderful." — WNYW-TV (New York)

"Best American play of the year." — The Wall Street Journal

"Gardner cuts deeper and darker than he's done before without relinquishing his status as a comic writer." — Newsweek

"Powerful, pungent and deeply felt. Gardner's best play." — New York Post

"A distinguished play with a shattering emotional range." — UPI

"Totally satisfying theatre." — The New Yorker

"Splendid." — Time Magazine

About the Playwright:

Herb Gardner (1934-2003) was an American commercial artist, cartoonist, playwright and screenwriter. Born in Brooklyn, he was educated at the New York High School of the Performing Arts, the Carnegie Institute of Technology and Antioch College. He first came to public attention in the 1950s as the author of The Nebbishes, a nationally syndicated comic strip about social gadflies, which he retired in 1960 to concentrate on writing. Best known for his Broadway hits A Thousand Clowns, I'm Not Rappaport and Conversations With My Father, he wrote few plays but their undeniable humour and commercial appeal made him among the most produced playwrights worldwide.