About the Play:

The Gingerbread Lady has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues, Male Monologues, and Female/Female Scenes.

The Gingerbread Lady is a full-length dramatic comedy by Neil Simon. The play centres on a nightclub singer struggling with an alcohol problem and just back from rehab. Her remaining friends and teenage daughter try in their own ways to support her while coping with their own problems. The Gingerbread Lady shows us the funny side of being human and the need to find something bigger than ourselves to live for.

The Gingerbread Lady centers on Evy Meara who was once a successful nightclub singer until her career hit the skids with her descent into pills and liquor. As the play opens she is just arriving home: slim, trim and sober after a short stay in rehab. Her best friend, Toby, a 40ish fashion plate who is finally detecting cracks in her beauty, her 17-year-old daughter, Polly, who matches Mom wisecrack for wisecrack, and Jimmy, a constantly disappointed actor, try to help her adjust to sobriety with a jolly birthday party. But insecurities and setbacks threaten to unravel Evy's health and relationships. Enter Lou Tanner, the abusive former boyfriend, who ends up giving her a black eye. The party is a wash out, the "gingerbread lady" falls off the wagon and hits the ropes once again. While Neil Simon's typical wit and hilarity permeate this piece, The Gingerbread Lady is an entirely serious story of lost misfits, genuinely and deeply touching, deviating from author's usual hilarious farces to show his diverse talent.

The Gingerbread Lady premiered in 1970 at the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway and was later rewritten by Neil Simon as the film Only When I Laugh. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and remains a staple of regional and community theatres because it offers a tour de force lead role for its female star.

Cast: 3 female, 3 male

What people say:

"He has combined an amusing comedy with the atmosphere of great sadness. His characteristic wit and humor are at their brilliant best, and his serious story of lost misfits can often be genuinely and deeply touching." — The New York Post

"Mr. Simon's play is as funny as ever-the customary avalanche of hilarity, and landslide of pure unbuttoned joy." — The New York Times

About the Playwright:

Neil Simon (1927-2018) was America's most prolific playwright. He had dozens of plays and nearly as many major motion pictures produced. He was showered with more Academy and Tony nominations than any other writer, and is the only playwright to have four Broadway productions running simultaneously. His plays have been produced in dozens of languages, and in 1983 became the only living playwright to have a New York theatre, the Neil Simon Theatre, named in his honour. His true success, however, is in his unique way of exposing something real in the American spirit.