Lucas Brickman is a young comedy writer trying to prove himself in the fraternal writers room for The Max Prince Show, one of the country’s most popular variety shows. It’s 1953, and with McCarthyism running rampant, the network demanding budget cuts, and a host who can’t manage to stay sober, things aren’t looking good. Playwright Neil Simon, a television comedy writer himself, wrote Laughter on the 23rd Floor as a roman a clef: the characters are based on real people but given fictional names. There’s the flashy Milt, who prefers quantity over quality when it comes to jokes, Ira, the hypochondriac agitator, Val, the fussy Russian immigrant, Brian, who claims to have somehow sold a screenplay he’s yet to write, the sophisticated Kenny, and the defensive Carol, the sole female writer. Packed with Simon’s characteristic wit and offbeat characters, this ensemble comedy offers a fly-on-the-wall look at a zany TV writers room and the colorful personalities inside it.
Laughter on the 23rd Floor guide sections
