Plaza Suite

Plaza Suite is a comedy play by Neil Simon.

The play is composed of three acts, each involving different characters but all set in Suite 719 of New York City's Plaza Hotel. The first act, Visitor From Mamaroneck, introduces the audience to not-so-blissfully wedded couple Sam and Karen Nash, who are revisiting their honeymoon suite in an attempt by Karen to bring the love back into their marriage. Her plan backfires and the two become embroiled in a heated argument about whether or not Sam is having an affair with his secretary. The act ends with Sam leaving (allegedly to attend to urgent business) and Karen sadly reflecting on how much things have changed since they were young.

The second act, Visitor from Hollywood, involves a meeting between movie producer Jesse Kiplinger and his childhood sweetheart, suburban housewife Muriel Tate. Serial divorcé Jesse attempts to seduce Muriel, who represents to him a longed-for innocence and purity. Meanwhile, celebrity-obsessed Muriel wants to hear every sordid detail of Hollywood life. She attempts to maintain her virtuous self-image which becomes increasingly at odds with her behaviour, and the act ends with the pair beginning to make love as Muriel makes Jesse recite the names of the celebrities he sat nearby at the most recent Academy Awards dinner.

The third act, Visitor from Forest Hills, revolves around married couple Roy and Norma Hubley on their daughter Mimsey's wedding day. In a rush of nervousness, Mimsey has locked herself in the suite's bathroom and refuses to leave. Her parents make frantic attempts to cajole her into attending her wedding while the gathered guests await the trio's arrival downstairs. It appears that the marriage will go ahead, as the act ends.

The play originally had four acts, one of which was cut during pre-production. Simon later expanded it for the 1970 feature film The Out-of-Towners.

Before its Broadway run, Plaza Suite premiered in 1968 at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven and the Colonial Theatre in Boston. Plaza Suite opened on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre on February 14, 1968, and closed on October 3, 1970, after 1,097 performances and two previews. Directed by Mike Nichols, the cast featured George C. Scott and Maureen Stapleton who appeared in each of the three acts with Bob Balaban in two acts. Clive Barnes in his review for The New York Times wrote that "after a slow start with the first, warms up with the second and ends with an all-stops-out, grandstand finish with the third." Later in the run, they were replaced by Dan Dailey, E. G. Marshall, Don Porter, Nicol Williamson, Barbara Baxley, and Peggy Cass.

The play was profiled in the William Goldman book The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway. Noël Coward, who three years earlier had written and starred in Suite in Three Keys—three plays with different characters, all set in the same hotel suite—later said of Plaza Suite, "Such a good idea having different plays all played in a hotel suite! I wonder where Neil Simon got it from?"

Mike Nichols won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play. Neil Simon was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play but lost to Tom Stoppard for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Maureen Stapleton was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play but lost to Zoe Caldwell in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.