Overview
Synopsis
Chris and Ken Gorman arrive at a fancy dinner party for their friend, Charley Brock. They discover that all is not well, and that Charley has had an accident involving a shotgun and his earlobe. This could be damaging to Charley’s reputation, as he is deputy mayor of New York City. Chris and Ken’s friends begin to arrive. As they attempt to cover up the facts, hilarity ensues. Neil Simon’s Rumors is a charming farce with lots of gags, twists, zingers, and zanies, but it also borrows from Simon’s life experience to depict the challenges, as well as the comforts, of married life.
Show Information
- Book
- Neil Simon
- Category
- Play
- Age Guidance
- Thirteen Plus (PG-13)
- Number of Acts
- 2
- First Produced
- 1988
- Genres
- Farce
- Settings
- Unit/Single Set
- Time & Place
- late 1980s. a quiet may evening at an upscale victorian home in palisades (formerly sneden’s landing) about twenty miles north of new york city.
- Cast Size
- medium
- Licensor
- Concord Theatricals
- Ideal For
- Community Theatre, Regional Theatre, Includes Adult, Mature Adult Characters, Medium Cast
Context
Rumors was written during a period of intense personal misery for its author, Neil Simon, who at the time of writing was already a famous and successful dramatist. Prior to completing the play, one of his daughters from an early marriage with the dancer Joan Baim (dead at 32 of cancer) lost her husband in a car crash. Simon had also married for the second time since Baim’s death, and was divorced again. He and the much younger Diane Lander had met at a Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills, where
to read the context for Rumors and to unlock other amazing theatre resources!Plot
Act One
The play opens with Chris Gorman, an elegantly dressed woman in her mid-thirties, waiting by the telephone inside a renovated Victorian home. Her husband, Ken Gorman, a lawyer, pounces out of an upstairs bedroom: someone is bleeding in the room Ken has just left. The phone rings. Dr. Dudley has kindly left his seat at Phantom of the Opera on Broadway to return the Gormans’ urgent call regarding his patient, Charley Brock, whose telephone this is. Chris begins to explain that as
to read the plot for Rumors and to unlock other amazing theatre resources!Characters
| Name | Part Size | Gender | Vocal Part |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Lead |
Male |
Spoken |
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|
Lead |
Female |
Spoken |
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|
Supporting |
Female |
Spoken |
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|
Supporting |
Male |
Spoken |
|
|
Supporting |
Male |
Spoken |
|
|
Featured |
Male |
Spoken |
|
|
Featured |
Female |
Spoken |
|
|
Featured |
Male |
Spoken |
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|
Featured |
Female |
Spoken |
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|
Featured |
Female |
Spoken |
Songs
A song with an asterisk (*) before the title indicates a dance number; a character listed in a song with an asterisk (*) by the character's name indicates that the character exclusively serves as a dancer in this song, which is sung by other characters.
Monologues
Scenes
Key Terms
A type of comedy that uses exaggeration, often with clowning and ridiculous behaviors, in order to entertain.
A type of popular entertainment popular chiefly in the early twentieth century, featuring a mixture of specialty acts, such as burlesque comedy and song and dance.
Videos
Quizzes
Themes, Symbols & Motifs
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Quote Analysis
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