Playwright Neal Simon is very generous in his play "Chapter Two".

The New Jewish Theatre’s production of Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers is a delight from beginning to end. It isn’t a perfect play, but under the sure direction of Doug Finlayson and the abundance of talent on stage and behind the scenes, it is rendered as a lovely and relatable story of family with all that word emotions that powerful word connotes.

If anyone can transform the Book of Job into a comedy, it’s Neil Simon. So I thought. I was wrong.

Some movies don't need to be made into musicals. Some musicals don't need to be revived.

There's something just very simple, and pure, and satisfying about good theatre. A good script, in the hands of capable actors, and with competent technical support, is more rare than one might think. But not so rare that you can't see it now in St. Louis Actors' Studio's current production of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys. Being presented at the intimate Gaslight Theatre in midtown St. Louis, this production is just good theatre. Not perfect theatre, but VERY GOOD theatre.

Dr. Anton Chekhov wrote short humor pieces to help pay his way through medical school long before he became one of Russia's (and the world) foremost playwrights. Neil Simon's nickname is "Doc," because of his talent as a play doctor. The former's stories and sketches aren't very funny anymore, but they found a second life after Simon performed his ultimate fix-it, adapting the old tales to appeal to modern sensibilities; a second opinion, in a way. And Avalon's slick production of the result, The Good Doctor, provides a lot of laughter which is, of course, the best medicine.

Promises, Promises is the only musical written by composer Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David. There's a reason for that: the music is (mostly) completely unmemorable. When the Broadway revival opened earlier this year, two more songs were added for Kristin Chenoweth, “I Say a Little Prayer” being one of them, and it is considerably stronger than anything in the original. However, that makes the show even longer than its current 2 hours, 45 minutes, which is not a good thing.